Namesake
by AllIncestIsWincest
Summary: James attempts to win his father's love and Al attempts to bring back the dead. A tale of revenge, redemption, death, resurrection, sibling rivalry, and a little brotherly love.
1. In which the stage is set

Just a little something I've been tinkering with. It'll mostly be about Harry's children and, later, his parents. There're going to be quite a few chapters. There's some cussing and sex references, so if that sort of stuff bothers you, I suggest you don't read this story. If you have any corrections or suggestions, just let me know when you review.

**Chapter 1 - In which the stage is set**

James was almost everyone's favorite. Well, of course Lily was his mother's favorite, not to mention his grandmother's and, okay, fine, pretty much all cheek-pinching old ladies. But James had won over the hearts of nearly everyone else. Everyone but his father, it seemed.

Albus was their father's favorite. He never said as much, but James could tell. The way their father would whisper to Albus, giving him quiet words of encouragement. The way he would always ask Albus to accompany him on walks, where he would tell Albus things he couldn't tell anybody else. The way his eyes twinkled with joy anytime Albus did just about anything. Yes, Al was definitely Harry Potter's favorite child.

Several years earlier, going into his second year at Hogwarts, James had been positive that it would be his turn to win over his father. He'd made it into Gryffindor his first year and he'd kept his grades up in (nearly) all his classes, particularly in transfiguration. He'd made just about a million friends and had charmed all of his teachers, including Headmistress McGonagall. And he was absolutely sure that he would make the Quiddich team this year, which would really just be the icing on the cake. After all that, he knew that his father would grow to love him the most.

But it hadn't happened that way. Even after Al had made -much to nearly everyone else in the family's dismay- the Slytherin house, and even after James had become the Quiddich seeker, their father seemed all the more proud of Albus, but gave hardly a pat on the back to James.

Now entering his sixth year at Hogwarts, very little had changed for James. Well, very little except that he'd become increasingly vocal about his dislike of Al. Similarly, Al seemed to take every opportunity to remind James that he was their father's favorite and not James. Of course, most everyone attributed this sibling rivalry to, simply, "boys being boys."

This year, though, James was going to give it his all. Finally, after sixteen years, he would win his father's heart. You see, James had a plan. A plan to expose his brother's flaws and to make a bright light shine on his very own best traits.

Unfortunately, what James didn't know was that Al would soon develop a plan of his own.

* * *

"I've gotta go, Dad," Al said. "The train's about to leave."

Harry Potter gave his son a smile and patted him on the back. "Right. See you this Christmas. Make me proud, all right?"

"Of course," Al said. He gave his father a quick hug and then rushed onto the train, a slight smile on his face.

Al found an empty compartment on the train and sat down. Almost immediately, a blonde Slytherin entered. The boy plopped himself down across from Al and said, "I'm hungry. You have anything to eat?"

"Nice to see you, too, Scorpius," Al said. He reached into his pocket and tossed the blonde a packet of M&Ms.

"What the fuck?" Scorpious asked, looking down at the little red M&M man on the package.

"It's a muggle candy," Al replied. Scorpious gave him a skeptical look. "Just eat it."

Scorpius ripped open the package and shoved about half of its contents in his mouth at once. "Whatever," he said, his mouth full.

Al shook his head. "Do you eat with your mouth open in the ever large and sinister Malfoy Manor?"

Scorpius nodded vigorously. "Especially if my grandparents are over. It's priceless, the looks they get on their faces. I swear, I almost made my grandfather throw up once."

"Lovely," Al said.

"Speaking of shocking my very old fashioned family," Scorpius began, "I've been thinking about it, and I've decided that I'm going to marry a muggle."

"Which one?"

"Oh, any old one will do," Scorpious said. "Can't you just picture it? My grandparents would die on the spot and my dad would probably have a heart attack."

"If you want to really do them in," started Al, "you should marry a muggle man."

"Brilliant!" Scorpious exclaimed. "A muggle man who's over twice my age and half my height, with twelve children and no limbs. They're just go wild over him, I bet."

Al and Scorpious had been friends since the beginning of their first year at Hogwarts. They'd met on the train ride, actually. "You're one of Harry Potter's kids, aren't you?" little tiny Scorpious had asked.

"Yes. And you're Draco Malfoy's son," scrawny first year Al had said. "My name's Albus."

"That's a stupid name."

"Yeah? What's yours?"

"Scorpius."

Al had never laughed more in his entire life. "Seriously?" Al had asked.

Scorpius had sniffed. "It was the name of a distant uncle of mine. It used to be a very common name."

"Yeah, about four hundred years ago," Al had said, still laughing. Two hours and two black eyes later, the two of them were the best of friends.

Anyway, back to the present, Scorpious was lamenting his lack of a girlfriend. "I mean, I'm a fifth year, Al," Scorpious whined. "Everybody else has been getting laid since, like, second year."

"That's really vulgar," Al said.

"Yeah, I know. I should find some way to incorporate that into my next conversation with my grandfather." Scorpius leaned back in his seat. "Hey, how old do you think your parents were when they first did the deed?"

Al nearly coughed up a dozen M&Ms. "Holy shit, Scorpius! How the bloody hell am I supposed to know that?"

Scorpous shrugged. "I don't know. You and your dad seem really close and all. I'm surprised he never told you."

"This may surprise you, but most normal people don't discuss things like this with their kids," All said.

Scorpius shrugged. "Well, how am I supposed to know that? My dad and I never discuss anything. As far as I know normal people talk about all kinds of awkward things at the dinner table. Sex, irritable bowel syndrome, chest hairs, menstruation, masturbation…"

And that's when Rose Weasley walked into the compartment. "Really now, Scorpius… Do I even want to know?"

Scorpius jumped out of his seat, his normally pale face bright red. "Ah! Rose! We were just talking about… I mean… We weren't talking about you or anything."

Rose raised an eyebrow. "I didn't assume that you were."

"Right," Scorpius said. "I, um…. I'm going to sit down now."

Rose shook her head and turned to Al. "I was going to ask if I could sit here, but on second thought, I think I'll go find Genevieve." With that, the fifth year Ravenclaw turned and left.

There was silence for a moment, and then Scorpius turned to Al and asked, "So… When did your cousin get tits?"

Al had a look on his face like he'd just walked in on two naked house elves comparing their junk.

"Seriously, though, did she go through a growth spurt or something this summer?" Scorpius asked. "Hey, you know, I bet if I brought her home my family would freak out even more than if I dragged some muggle in. I dunno. Do you think a guy like me and a girl like her…"

"No, no, no, definitely not," Al said.

"Yeah, but…"

"No, no, no, no, no."

"Oh, come on, Al, it's not totally unrealistic," Scorpius said. "I mean, I am rather dashing and she's become a total boner magnet. We're perfect for each other."

"You know, sometimes I really can't tell if you're joking or not," Al grumbled.

Lily stepped into the compartment just in time to miss the heinous conversation. "Hi, Al," she said in her sweet, little voice.

Lily was a second year Gryffindor with an unruly mane of red hair. She was covered in freckles and had very chubby cheeks despite the fact that she was a very thin girl. Picture Little Debby and multiply her cuteness by two and you'd have little Lily Potter.

"Why, hello, Lily!" Scorpius said, jovially. "Why don't you come sit on Uncle Scorpius' lap?"

"Go fuck yourself," said little Lily Potter, as sweetly as can be.

Lily sat down next to Al. "I'm bored. Tell me a story about Hobbits."

"What's a Hobbit?" asked Scorpius, taking a gargantuan bite off of a sandwich he'd pulled out of his bag.

"It's a muggle thing," Al said. "Picture Professor Flitwick but with really hairy feet."

"Blimey," said Scorpious.

"Once there was a Hobbit named, um, Billy," Al said, his arm protectively around Lily. "Billy was very kind and he always gave presents to people. But then one day he was run over by a bus and he died. And, um, everybody was very sad. So they had him stuffed and took turns carrying him around and pretending that he was still alive. And, ah, then one day he came back to life and everyone was happy and they had pudding for dinner. The end."

"That was the worst story I've ever heard in my life," said little Lily Potter.

"Yeah, don't quit your day job, Potter," said Scorpius, taking another monstrous bite from his sandwich.

It was a very long train ride.

* * *

Sorting was quickly becoming one of the most boring of all ceremonies at Hogwarts. Of course, James had been very excited about it his first year. He'd known, of course, that he would get into Gryffindor, even after the sorting hat joked about putting him in Hufflepuff if he didn't hold still. And of course it had been interesting the year after, what with his brother making Slytherin and his cousin making Ravenclaw. But now all James could think about was that half of the first years would probably get lice from the blasted hat.

Next to James sat Lily and about a million of their Weasley cousins. Well, okay, only five. But it seemed like a million sometimes. There was Hugo, a third year who, unbeknownst to most of the witches and wizards he met, bared an uncanny resemblance to Danny Partridge. And then there were Dominique and Louis, a seventh and a sixth year respectively, the two of them being Uncle Bill and Aunt Fleur's children. Oh, and then there were Molly and Lucy, Uncle Percy's twin fourth year daughters. And let's not forget Fred and Roxanne who, despite their natural hair color being black like their mother, Angelina's, had their hair constantly died red, so that everyone would know that they were Weasleys, too. Their father, George, had suggested the idea to them three years ago when Fred was a third year and Roxanne was a second year. Anyway, what this all came down to was that at this very moment, as James was contemplating all the lice and dandruff that was surely on the sorting had, he realized that he was completely surrounded by a gaggle of redheads.

"I need to get out of here," James muttered under his breath. It wasn't that he didn't love his sister and cousins. It was simply that constantly being with family could be a bit suffocating for him at times.

James snuck down the table, careful not to make (much) noise, as the moldy, old hat was still sorting away. He finally found several of his friends. It was odd, but most of his close friends seemed to be the children of his parents' friends and acquaintances. That's the unfortunate thing about attending the same school as your parents, and a small school at that: you're doomed to already know just about everybody. Let's see now… Pete was Seamus' son. Oh, and so was Lance. And Alex was Dean and Luna's son and Barry was Cho Chang's son. Oh, and Chitra was one of the Patil ladies' daughters; James could never remember which one's. There were dozens of people, dozens of names, dozens of parents, all of which were very familiar to James.

As James sat down next to Pete and Alex, he looked across the room to the Slytherin table. There was Al with Scorpius, his one friend. That was one thing James had always had above Al: his undying popularity. Besides, Scorpious' father was familiar, too. Just not in the nicest of ways.

The sorting was over, so everyone could talk freely now. "Hey, James," Pete said, nudging James in the ribs.

"Yeah?"

"You know your cousin, Rose?" Pete asked. "Like, when did she finally get a rack?"

James thought for a second. "No idea. When did you get yours?"

Pete slugged James hard on his shoulder. His slight weight issue had always been a bit of a sore spot for him.

"Hey, Alex," James said.

Alex stared forward, his mouth slightly agape and his eyes completely unseeing.

"Hey, asshole!" James said, swatting Alex on the back.

"Oi, sorry," Alex said, coming to. "I must've blanked out again there."

"Just make sure you're not so spacey when we start Quiddich practice next week," James said. James had made Quiddich captain this year, so he felt very captainy whenever he told another player to either start or stop something to better his playing abilities.

"Captainy" is not actually a word. James Potter, however, felt that it should be.


	2. In which James' sex life is discussed

**Chapter 2 - In which James' sex life is discussed**

Despite the fact that the Forbidden Forest was, in fact, forbidden to enter, it had become very common hangout spot for the students of Hogwarts, despite the fact that it was still the home of irritable centaurs, hungry spiders, and some creatures you just wouldn't want to know about. Perhaps it was the students of Hogwarts' way of saying, "The war's been over since before I was born, there's no real danger left in the world, so bite me."

"Hi, Mr. Centaur!" Scorpius called out jubilantly as he fervently waved his hand and smiled.

"Mr. Centaur" raised an eyebrow and then trotted off, looking sufficiently annoyed.

"Buh bye!" Scorpius call out to the centaur.

"I don't think they like us just marching in here and making fun of them," Al said.

"I wasn't making fun of him. As far as you know Mr. Centaur's his real name." Scorpius skipped along the pathway through the forest. "La la la, la la…"

Al shook his head. "It's amazing you didn't get sorted into Hufflepuff."

"Hello, Mr. House Elf!" Scorpius called out.

The House Elf, who was carrying a large pile of wood in her arms, took a moment to stretch out her middle finger in Scorpius' direction.

"Nice to see you, too!" Scorpius' mumbled. He turned to Al. "I really hate House Elves."

"Doesn't your family have some working for them?" Al asked.

"Yeah, but they're all mean ones," Scorpius said. "They're always giving me these mean looks and I think this one keeps trying to poison me."

"Fancy that."

"My mum says that I was dropped on the head as a baby by a House Elf," Scorpius said.

"I wouldn't be surprised," Al said.

Scorpius scratched his head. "Tell me, what was a House Elf doing holding me, anyway? Mum probably brought some old, pedophile House Elf into the house and he probably got a little too excited when he was holding me that he let me go splat right onto the hardwood floor."

Al had no idea what to say to that.

"Seriously, though, I mean, how do we know that we weren't molested as little kids?" Scorpius asked. "I mean, I can't remember anything before I was six. And people tend to block out traumatic experiences. As far as I know old Grandpa Lucius is a regular child molester and…"

"You have no idea how much I don't want to hear about this," Al said.

Scorpius stopped talking and crossed his arms, slightly embarrassed. "Okay, what should we do then?"

"I don't know," Al said. "We could study for our OWLs."

Scorpius thought this over. "Let's dig for buried treasure."

"Scorpius, I am _not _going to dig for buried treasure," Al said.

Two minute later, the two of them were on their hands and knees, digging up the earth.

* * *

James had been fifteen when he'd lost his virginity. It had been to Chitra, the daughter of some Patil and the keeper on the Quiddich team. He'd been her first, too. After they broke up, his next sexual experience had been with Jenny, Seamus Finnegan's Hufflepuff daughter. Then it had been Ellie, the Ravenclaw daughter of some bloke his parents had gone to school with, though James could never remember who.

The was the extent of James Potter's boning career. It was a lot, considering that Hogwarts wasn't exactly a large school and most witches and wizards, it seemed, didn't lose their virginities until they were married; the magical community was surprisingly old fashioned.

At the moment, James was between girlfriends. This meant that James had been jerking off nearly every day all summer. Now that he was back in school again, he'd found very few opportunities to spray his seed. Masturbation was something very difficult to find time to do when you shared a room with four other people and the bathrooms were plagued with ghosts. Once, James had walked in on Pete Finnegan jerking off in their dormitory; both of them had been traumatized for at least a week.

What James could not fathom, however, was that despite being quite a Gryffindor stud when it came to the ladies, he kept finding himself ever so slightly attracted to members of the same sex. It wasn't anyone specific who he was attracted to, or at least not as far as James could tell. James did not dream at night about Pete and Alex and Barry. Actually, this seemed quite repulsive to him, thinking of his closest friends in such a way. But, sometimes, deep in the back of his mind, he would think of what he believed to be imaginary boys. Sometimes, it was a tall, grinning boy with curly black hair and twinkling eyes who made James want to hide. And sometimes it was this fellow who's face he couldn't quite make out, but who he knew he would die for. Sometimes he would picture the boys playing Quiddich and sometimes merely sleeping in bed. Not exactly the most raunchy thoughts, but the way the images made James feel was undeniable. And then James would wake up, deeply troubled by his dreams and unable to go back to sleep.

James didn't imagine himself to be bisexual, and yet the evidence was overwhelming. Besides, if he was, he knew it would be the sort of thing best kept hidden, particularly if he was planning to finally prove his superiority to his brother this year.

Oddly enough, Albus Potter was soon to discover that he had a similar, though distinctly stranger and more difficult, problem at hand.

* * *

After digging in the Forbidden Forest for about an hour, Al had given up. He began running his wand over his clothes, fervently trying to clean the dirt off of them. "Come on, let's go. We haven't found anything good."

"Are you kidding?" Scorpius said. "We found two sickles, part of a shovel, and an old thong."

"I can't even tell if you're joking or not," Al muttered. "Besides, you're covered head to toe in dirt and God-knows-what."

Scorpius sniffed. "Come on, just a little while longer. Besides, I found some cool rocks." He thrust his hands forward to Albus. "See?"

Al looked over the rocks. "What's so special about this one?"

"It's pointy!" Scorpius said.

"And this one?" asked Al.

"Well, it's a really pretty shade of black," Scorpius said.

"And this one's… a dirt clod."

"Oh, woops." Scorpius chucked the clump of dirt. "But this one's really neat."

Al looked. Sure enough, the stone was more aesthetically pleasing than the others. "I think it used to be part of a ring," Al said.

"Great! That means that the rest of it's probably around here somewhere!" Scorpius set the rocks aside and began digging again into the earth.

"Let's just go," Al said. He began to stand up.

"What on earth?" Scorpius shrieked.

"What? What?" Al asked. "Did you find something?"

"Er, no. It's just, when you stood up, I saw your socks," Scorpius said.

Al raised an eyebrow. He lifted his pant leg, revealing a bright green and yellow striped sock. "So?

"So… It's awful," Scorpius said. "What? Did your grandma knit them for you?"

"Er, yes, actually," Al said, reddening slightly. "She makes them for everyone. Just be glad I'm not wearing the matching sweater."

"Why are you wearing any of them?" Scorpius asked. "I mean, that's really bloody awful, mate."

Al thought for a moment. "Come to think of it, I don't think anybody else ever wears them except for when we're visiting my grandparents."

"And there's a reason why!" Scorpius exclaimed. "I mean, just look at it."

Still flushed, Al said, "I don't know. I just really like socks for some reason. I mean… they're sort of neat, you know?"

"No!" Scorpius said. "You're crazy. No Slytherin with even an ounce of dignity would go around wearing those ghastly things!"

"No Slytherin with an ounce of dignity would go around rolling in the dirt looking for buried treasure and shouting hello to centaurs," Al responded.

"Touché," Scorpius said. He began to collect his findings. "Hey, the rocks are cool and the sickles are useful, but do you suppose we should keep any of the rest?"

Al gave his friend a look which seemed to say, "No fucking way."

"Alright, alright, let's go," Scorpius mumbled.

* * *

On only the second day of school, James was holding Quiddich tryouts. He thought it was best, seeing as the sooner he picked a team the sooner they could begin practicing and then the sooner they would start winning. Some people were going to be easy to pick. James figured he would keep Chitra for keeper, Pete and Lance for beaters, and Barry as a chaser. Oh, and himself for seeker, of course.

Tryouts went just about as he thought they would. A few first years tried out, most of which could barely leave the ground. Then there were a few people who flew into the goalposts; it happened every year. Lily tried out for chaser. She wasn't too bad, actually. Her small size seemed to make it easier for her to slip by people. She was a definite possibility.

Hugo tried out, too. He was the first person to come crashing into a goal post. James decided to tell him that maybe he should try again next year.

A forth year, Odell Brown, did a fairly good job, until the very end when he accidentally bumped into somebody, causing him to jump forward on his broom, sending himself full speed at the goal posts. He was the second person to hit into a goal post. James decided to put him in the maybe pile.

Winning their first game would be a definite step for James in proving to his father that he was better than Al. Still, that wouldn't be enough. He needed to do something big. It was too bad there never seemed to be any dark wizards anymore. If he could find one and defeat him or her, then he just knew that Harry would see how brave and good he was.

"Step one," James thought to himself, "Find a dark wizard." But where was he going to find one? All Death Eaters from the war were either dead or in Azkaban, which only left petty thieves and the hookers who walked down Knockturn Alley. Not exactly what James had in mind.

And James couldn't just create a problem and then fix it. That seemed just a bit too, well, creepy. Witches and wizards had done such a thing in the past: solving some big problem only for it to turn up later that the entire situation had been invented by themselves. And that just really wasn't the sort of thing James was willing to do.

* * *

For a Slytherin at this time, being picky about who could and who could not be your friend was not the best idea. It was lucky, really, if you had any friends at all. Perhaps it was because many Slytherins were the children of Death Eaters from the war. Or perhaps it was because, despite the fact that house unity at Hogwarts was significantly better than it had been twenty years ago, many people still viewed the Slytherin house with suspicion. Whatever the reason, many young Slytherins found themselves isolated and friendless.

In Al and Scorpius' year, there were two other Slytherin boys. There was Nott, who just sort of read books all the time and stared at walls and only talked to others if they had to. And then there was Goyle, who did nothing but eat and, well, stare at the walls. In fact, it had amazed Scorpius that he had found just one friend. Of course, when he'd told his parents that he was friends with Harry Potter's second son, they weren't exactly thrilled. His father had just sort of shrugged and his mother had started hissing about how he should put more of an effort into finding more reliable friends.

Sometimes, Scorpius almost agreed with this. Namely when Al started acting like a crazy son of a bitch. Like first year, when he'd found a pile of dozens of socks under Al's bed. Or second year when Al had somehow gotten himself stuck in the Shrieking Shack and nobody had been able to find him for three days. Or the time in their third year when Al had been sleep walking and they found him in the girls bathroom trying to scrub imaginary stains off of his hands or arms or something. Or just last year when Al had tried to throw himself off of the Astronomy tower in the middle of the night. That one had been the worst.

Of course, at this point, nothing Al did really surprised Scorpius anymore. Such as when Al woke him up at two in the morning on their second night at Hogwarts to ask him about his uncle.

"Wah?" Scorpius said.

"Your uncle," Al said, annoyed. "The one you were named after. What side of your family was he on?"

"Um… my mum's…" Scorpius said, trying to fall back asleep.

"What was he like?"

"I dunno… I think he died or something… before I was born," Scorpius mumbled.

"Did your mother ever tell you what he was like?" Al asked.

"Um… I dunno… Apparently he was sort of senile… and kind of a pervert," Scorpius muttered. "Mum says he used to pinch everybody's bottoms when they walked by. And he was always making really crude comments."

"Then why did your parents name you after him?" Al asked.

"How the fuck should I know?" Scorpius said, now completely awake.

"It just seems odd is all," Al said. "Hey. What's your middle name?"

"No."

"Come on. What is it?"

"It's stupid."

"Even worse than Scorpious?"

"Well, no," Scorpious said. "Fine, it's Gellert. You can laugh now."

But Al didn't laugh. "Why that name?"

"I don't know," Scorpius said. "Go to bed, Al."

But after that, Scorpius couldn't get back to sleep, and he knew that Al wasn't sleeping either.


	3. In which Al freaks out

**Chapter 3 - In which Al freaks out**

"Dark wizard, dark wizard, dark wizard," James thought to himself. In the back of his mind, he imagined his cousin, Rose, saying, "Or dark witch!"

Where was he supposed to find a dark wizard (or dark witch) in this day and age? James supposed that he could just wait for somebody to break out of Azkaban, but that hadn't happened for over twenty years. Or maybe he could wait for Hogwarts to be attacked by a gaggle of dementors, but that didn't seem very likely, either. Anyway, he would need to know how to conjure a patronus for that one, and he'd only attempted it once, with very dismal results.

So, for the first order of business, James decided that he would need to train himself. It wasn't that hard to find the Room of Requirement; his father had mentioned once what floor it was on and how to get in. James walked around, constantly thinking, "I need a room to practice spells in."

His third time around, he ran into Mickey Thomas, Alex's twin sister in Ravenclaw. "Oh, hello," she greeted him. "Are you looking for the bathrooms?"

"Er, no," James replied. "I'm trying to find the Room of Requirements." He knew that both of Mickey's parents had used the room while at Hogwarts and assumed that they'd told her of it.

"Really? Can I come, too?" she asked.

"Um, yeah, sure," James responded.

The two of them began walking together. "It's been ages since I've been in there," Mickey said in her airy voice. "Last time I went because I got locked out of my dormitory and I needed a place to sleep. There was a very comfortable bed in there with charms all around to keep away the Snuffmins."

"What?" James asked, trying to keep his concentration on finding the room.

"Snuffmins," Mickey said, pushing her unruly hair away from her eyes. "They're a newly discovered species. They're very small and they attack people when they're sleeping by burrowing down their throats. I hear it's very unpleasant."

"Um, yeah. Sounds like it," James said.

Finally, the doorway appeared. James and Mickey entered. The room was large, with mirrors all around and lots of empty space on the ground. "Close the door, will you?" he called over his shoulder.

"What are we in here to do?" Mickey asked.

"I wanted to practice making a patronus," James replied.

"Ooh, that's a tricky one," Mickey said. "It took me ages to get mine." With a flick of her wand and a murmur of words, a ghostlike tree frog began hopping about the room. "Isn't he adorable? I call him Andy."

James' heart sunk. Mickey could already conjure a patronus? James pointed his wand up and shouted the spell. A few wisps of smoke came from the wand, and the tiny fragment of a patronus made the sound "pew."

"Mother fucker…" James said.

"I think you need a happier memory," Mickey said. "What are you using now?"

The memory James was using was, actually, when he lost his virginity to Chitra. But he wasn't about to tell Mickey that. "Um, I was just thinking about the time when… you know… I um… I won my first Quiddich game."

"You should try hugs," Mickey said. "My memory is of my Mum and Dad hugging me. It seems to do the job."

"Hugs?" James asked. Then, he had an idea. Who said that a patronus could only be conjured with a real memory? What if he simply thought of something really groovy that technically hadn't happened yet? James pictured his parents, asking him about how he'd caught two -no, wait, four- dark wizards all by himself. "Har har, son," Harry said, patting James on the back.

"Um, no, that's too corny," James whispered to himself. He refined the fake memory slightly, trying to make it a bit less cheesy. With that, he lifted his wand again and said the spell once more. This time, an entire stream of white light shot from his wand, forming a small waterfall over him.

"That's better," Mickey said. James looked at her. She was putting up some sort of leaves all around the room. He decided not to ask.

* * *

Al and Scorpius had the Slytherin common room to themselves. Classes were over for the day and everyone else was either still at dinner or locked up in their rooms.

"She's just really creepy," Scorpius began. "I mean, I don't know, she might've had a nice body when she was younger, but now she's just a complete psychopath."

Al rolled his eyes. "Of course she is," he said. "Everyone knows that."

"Yeah, but she's always telling me how I'm going to die," Scorpius said.

"Trelawney does that to everyone," Al said.

"And today she kept me after class to tell me about how she just knows that if I put a little more effort forward, I can do great things," Scorpious said. "With what? Her bloody crackpot tea leaves?"

Al shrugged. He'd already heard this rant about a million times coming from various students.

"And then she started telling me about when she first started at Hogwarts," Scorpious went on. "And about how she almost didn't get the job, but then the headmaster, she's sure, saw her worth as a seer, and how she knows that maybe I don't do my very best all the time, but she just knows that I'm gifted and she's not giving up on me."

"My father told me about that," Al said, suddenly.

"About Trelawney not giving up on me?"

"No, dip shit, about Trelawney being hired at Hogwarts," Al said. "Apparently she told him about it a long time ago."

"No kidding. She tells everybody everything," Scorpius said. "It's like she wants me to write her biography or something."

"Apparently she wasn't going to get the job, but then she told an actual prediction," Al went on. "I don't think Dad's ever really mentioned it to anyone but me. Said she was interrupted, though."

"Oh, of course, she'd remember something like that," Scorpius said. "Interrupted? Ooh, heaven forbid! I bet she's just the sort of person who would hold a grudge over something like that for a dozen years. And, besides…" Scorpius stopped. He faced Al.

Al was leaning against the wall. It looked like he had a case of the hiccups, but upon closer inspection Scorpius realized that he was trying very hard to breath, but no air was coming to him. Al began to slide down the wall, all the while making strange sucking noises. "Aheh, aheh, aheh…"

"Holy fuck, Al. You okay?" Scorpius asked. "Do you have, like, asthma or something?"

Al didn't respond. His knees buckled and he fell back onto the ground. He put his hands up to his face and grabbed his head. "Aheh, aheh, aheh…"

To Al, it felt like he had a million thoughts flowing through his head at once. He was in a room. Annoyance, frustration, worry. Flash, he was in another room. There it was again, annoyance, frustration, worry. Pity. Flash. The same room, but he was standing in another spot. Hatred, self-loathing. He wanted to die.

"Shit, Al," Scorpius said, started to panic. "Want me to go get Pomphrey?"

"No, not him," Al let out between the sucking noises.

"Um, not to nit pick, but Pomphrey isn't a bloke, mate," Scorpious said.

"Aheh, aheh, aheh," Al went on. Finally, he managed to say, "Lily."

"Right. Lily. I'll go get her." Scorpius raced out the door so fast that he found himself in the hall in no time. He jumped up to the Gryffindor table, getting many glares from surprised Weasleys. He tapped Lily on the shoulder. "Your brother needs you. Now."

"But I…" Lily didn't get to finish her thought. Scorpius was already dragging the small girl through the doors and down into the dungeons.

"Sorry, I wouldn't have bothered you," Scorpius began, "But he asked me to get you."

Scorpius yelled out the Slytherin password and flung Lily through the door. He shoved her toward Al, who was now turning a very peculiar shade of blue.

"Aheh, aheh, aheh," Al went. "I won't. I won't do it…"

Lily crouched down next to her brother. She laid her hand on his head. Instantly, he began to calm. She put her little arms around him and lifted him into a sitting position. "Shhh," she whispered, soothingly. He was breathing again. "It's alright, brother. I see things in the dark, too."

Al coughed. He looked at Lily, a very strange expression adorning his face.

Scorpous cleared his throat. "Well, it looks like everything's okay now," he said. "Say, Lily, how about a hug for Uncle Scorpius?"

Al let out this hissing sound. "Leave… her… alone," he cried at Scorpius.

"Yeah, shut up, you dick!" Lily yelled at Scorpius in her sweet, little voice.

"Joking, joking," Scorpius said, taking a step back. "Just fucking joking."

Al and Lily sat there for a moment, her arms around him. He still had that peculiar look on his face, like he couldn't quite remember where he was. He brushed Lily's hair out of her face. And then, without warning, he bent forward and kissed her.

It wasn't a long kiss. It was just a peck, really, upon the lips. But it was enough to send Scorpius' jaw dropping. "Blimey, Al…"

Lily had a very peculiar look upon her face, too. She stood up and walked out of the room, leaving Al on the ground.

Scorpius was shaking his head. "I'm going to assume that that was a completely platonic hug and kiss," Scorpious began, "And now I'm going to go to bed."

He walked away, leaving a very shaken Albus on the ground, all alone.

* * *

"Son of a bitch!" James shouted.

"You'll never conjure a patronus with that kind of attitude," Mickey said. "And you might bring in Karliminks. I hear they're attracted to bad language."

"I just can't get a happy enough memory," James whined.

"Here, let me show you again," Mickey said. In a moment, her ghost frog was leaping about the room once more. "Good Andy."

To tell the truth, being shown up by this spacey girl was really bothering James. Actually, he was downright pissed. Why couldn't he get it right? He stared at Mickey, loathing her superior abilities with all his might.

Suddenly, Mickey let out a screech and dropped her wand as she was cast upward to the point where she was hanging upside down by one leg. "Oh, no! A Dargin's got me! A Dargin's got me!"

"Wait here!" James yelled. "I'll go get help."

"Oh, hurry!" Mickey said. "My clothes are made out of cotton! It'll only be a matter of time before he starts eating them!"

James almost paused to ask what the hell she was talking about, but decided instead that it would be best just to run out of the room and find a teacher. He ran down the halls, bumping past Lance, who was trying to ask James a question. Then he ran past Lily, who was running in the opposite direction and looked upset or scared or something. James told himself that he would have to go back later and ask her what was the matter.

The first teacher James came across was Professor Flitwick. James scooped up the little man in his arms. Flitwick screeched as James began running back toward the Room of Requirement.

"Put me down!" Flitwick shrieked.

"Oh, right," James said. "But you'll have to run." He sat Flitwick down and then began pulling him by the arm.

In a matter of minutes, they were back inside the room with the suspended Mickey. "Oh, hello!" Mickey said, cheerfully. "Turns out that this is a nice Dargin. He's very pleasant. His name's Jumbles…"

"Can you get her down?" James asked.

"Oh, my," Flitwick said. "This spell hasn't been popular for ages. Oh, well." With the flick of his wand, Mickey was released and she toppled down head first onto the ground.

"Next time you go cursing your friends," Flitwick huffed, "Make sure you know the counter curse first!" With that, he strolled out the door.

Mickey leapt up and gave James a hug. "Oh, you're such a good friend! Had Jumbles been a bad Dargin, you would've saved my life just now!"

"Um, yeah," James said, a slight blush on his cheeks. "How do you know his name, anyway?"

"Oh, he told me," Mickey explained.

"Uh… right," James said. Mickey Thomas was just full of mysteries.


	4. In which Scorpius is violated

**Chapter 4 - In which Scorpius is violated**

In Herbology the next day, Professor Longbottom was attempting to teach the class how to distinguish such and such a plant from such and such another plant. "It's really quite important," he said, "Because one of them can be very poisonous and…"

Al went back to droning Longbottom out. This was their first Herbology class of the school year, and it was proving to be just as dull for him as usual. Next to him, Scorpius kept falling asleep on a poisonous plant.

"Now, you can get to work," Longbottom said, in his shy voice. "Oh! And I have an announcement!"

"He's really a house elf in disguise!" Scorpius whispered. "I knew it!"

"Well," Longbottom began, a slight blush on his fact, "Susan, er, I mean, Professor Bones and I are going to have a baby!"

Half of the girls (and a couple of the boys) squealed in delight. A group of girls nearest him began questioning him. How far along was she? Were they hoping for a boy or a girl? Had they started thinking of names yet? Professor Longbottom responded to their questions kindly, most of the time the answer being, "I'm not sure."

Scorpius sniffed. "I would've thought old Bonesy would be too old to have kids. Or at least, that no one would want to with her."

"They've been married for years, though," Al said. "I mean, if somebody would want to marry her, then I suppose somebody would want to…"

Scorpius turned slightly green. "Ugh! Can you just imagine that? Longbottom and Bonesy? Lying around and humping each other?"

Several heads turned when he said this. "Just because you can't get any doesn't mean that you should deny anyone else!" somebody shouted out.

"Besides," Al began, "Aren't you the one who's always making bone jokes about her?"

Scorpius shrugged this off. "Bones and Longbottom. Wow. You wonder why she never changed her name and then you hear what it almost became…" He shuddered. "Seriously, though, boner jokes are one thing, but actually picturing them making it is just… ugh! I'm going to be traumatized!" He crossed his eyes and reached his hands out in front of him. "Al, is that you? I think I'm blind!"

* * *

In the Gryffindor common room, James found Lily lying on one of the couches. "Hey, Lily," he said. "I was looking for you last night, but I guess you'd already gone to bed, and when I tried to go in there this alarm went off."

"Oh, hi, James," she said. "Yeah, it does that sometimes."

"Anyway, are you alright? You looked sick last night," James said.

"I'm okay. I was just talking with Al, and…"

"Did he say something to you?" James asked. "Want me to go beat him up?"

Lily smiled. "I don't think that'll be necessary."

"Really? Damn. I was really hoping to. I have a lot of new spells I'd like to try out."

"No, really, he didn't say anything to me," Lily said. "He just seemed really sick, is all, and I was worried that he might be ill."

"Oh, okay," James said. "I guess I'll let him live then."

Lily giggled and then they were silent for a moment.

"James…" Lily started, in barely more than a whisper. "Do you ever remember things that never really happened?"

"Well, if I remembered them, then how would I know that they never happened?" James asked.

"Well, if you remember a place you've never really been and people who you've never really met, I suppose," Lily said. "Do you ever do that? Keep dreaming about the same people and places, but people and places you never really knew?"

James thought for a moment. But, for whatever conclusion he came to in his mind, he nonetheless said, "Nope. Never."

"Okay" Lily said. "I was just wondering." She hopped up and walked to her dormitory. "Goodnight, James."

"Night, Lil," James replied.

* * *

It was several days before Scorpius got a chance to speak with Lily. She was just coming out of her Transfiguration class when he spotted her with a group of her friends.

"Hello, ladies!" Scorpius said, swooping in front of them. A couple of them shrieked and one hissed at him. "My, I see you're all coming along quite well. Why, Jenny, you must be a B cup already!"

The tiny Gryffindor squeaked and hid behind the hissing girl.

"What do you want, you asshole?" dear, sweet Lily Potter said.

"Actually, I wanted to speak with you," Scorpius said. "Alone, if you don't mind. How about we just slip into my bedroom and" -Lily raised her wand threateningly- "Alright, fine, we can talk out here."

Lily walked away from her friends and beckoned Scorpius toward her. Scorpius turned to the girls. "Well, sorry to leave you so soon, girls. Swing by my place tonight if you get a chance."

Scorpius trotted after Lily, leaving her scared and confused friends behind. "So," he said, "No kiss for Uncle Scorpius?"

"No, but I'll kick you in your balls, if you want," Lily said.

"Hmm. Well, to tell the truth, I'm not too fond of kicking," Scorpius said. "But I can think of a few other things you could do to them…"

"Aw, but kicking's so much fun," darling Lily said. "Anyway, what did you want to talk to me about?"

"Well, it's about your brother, actually," Scorpius said. "Let's see… How to put this… So, is he a fucking psychopath or what?"

"Better than being an uncontrollable sex fiend," Lily said.

"Well, after the other day, I'm not so sure that we can rule that out, either," Scorpius said.

Lily gave him a hard look. "Watch out, or I may have to chop off your dick."

"Just so you can keep it to yourself, I'm sure," Scorpius said. "Anyway, you haven't answered my question: Is he a fucking nutter?"

Lily looked down at the floor. "He's not crazy."

"Then what was with that freak out?" Scorpius said. "He seemed pretty crackers to me."

"He's not crazy," Lily repeated, her eyes still on the floor.

"This hasn't been the first time he's done something like this," Scorpius said.

"What do you mean?" Lily asked.

"Last year he tried to throw himself off the Astronomy Tower."

"He didn't!" Lily shrieked, sudden panic in her voice. "Why would he?"

"How the fuck should I know?" Scorpius asked. "I just woke up and he was walking around and muttering to himself. So, I followed him around the castle, trying to figure out where he was going. He kept going back at some points and retracing his steps, so I was sure that he would see me, but I guess he was sleep walking, because he never noticed me. Anyway, then he went up to the Astronomy Tower and he just stood at the doorway for a while before he walked to the edge. Then he just stood there, facing toward me like he was going to just let himself fall backwards. But when he started to let himself swing back, I grabbed onto him and pulled him forward. And when he woke up, instead of saying that he was sleep walking, he started yelling at me that I'd messed up his concentration or something."

Lily looked sick. "Do you think he would have really jumped?"

"Yeah!" Scorpius said. "He looked like he was going to, anyway. It scared the shit out of me. I seriously came this close to pissing myself!"

"Thank you for that bit of vital information, Scorpius," Lily said, dryly.

"So, is he cracked up or not?" Scorpius asked.

Lily sighed. "I don't know. Why don't you talk to him about it?"

"Okay, fine, I'll talk to him soon," Scorpius said. He looked down at his watch. "Say, we still have about twenty minutes before either of our classes start. What say we head up to the old Room of Requirement and…"

"Go fuck a dementor," Lily said before storming off in the other direction.

* * *

James, after a week of practice, had finally learned to conjure a (nearly) perfect patronus. Mickey joined him almost every day. She was a bit more awkward at making friends than her brother was, so the time she spent with James was almost all of the social contact she had. Alex, at least, could cover up his airiness if need be, and he was much less likely to say odd things.

And James, who had (almost) never said no to any friendship, felt that even spacey Mickey was fun to be around when she wasn't acting too strange.

"Alright, what spell should I work on next?" James asked, a snowy stag walking around him.

Mickey's tree frog met James' stag. "Hmm," she began, "It would be good to know a nice protection spell from Higmets. They're not hard to come across in cold weather."

"Or," began James, "I could work on some protection spells from, say, other spells."

Mickey shrugged. "Either way."

By the next day, the two of them had grown comfortable with dueling one another. James would shoot out a spell and Mickey would try to block it, and then the reverse would happen. Hogwarts didn't have a dueling club, but James was quickly coming to the conclusion that it should.

"I'm already Quiddich captain, so I couldn't be the one to set it up," James said. "But you could."

"No one would come," Mickey said. "People like you. You should do it."

Some bit of James' inner self wanted to bask in this, but he quickly shoved that arrogant part of himself down and said, "No, people like you, too. How about if you be the president or captain or whatever and I'll be the vice president or captain or whatever."

Mickey smiled. "Alright. If you'll think it will work."

"Great!" James said. "I'll ask McGonagall about it tomorrow."

Mickey smiled. James looked at her for a moment, trying to figure out what was different about her. Then he realized that he had never seen her smile with her teeth before. It really suited her.

* * *

When Scorpius walked into his dormitory, he found Al juggling three multi-colored balls. "I've never been able to do this before!" Al said excitedly.

Al was nearly always serious, and sometimes he even neared the point of scariness, but every now and then this playful side of him would emerge.

"Oh, I got some chocolate frogs in a package from my mum," Al said, never losing his concentration on the juggling balls. "They're on my bed if you want some later."

"Sure, thanks," Scorpius said. "Maybe later."

Al stopped juggling, catching all three balls and cradling them in one of his arms. "Ta da!" He took a bow.

"You're very strange sometimes," Scorpius said.

Al chucked the juggling balls onto his bed. Stepping toward Scorpius, he said, "That reminds me: there's something I wanted to check, and as long as I'm in a good mood I might as well do it now."

"Huh?" asked Scorpius.

The was a slight twinkle in Al's eyes. He walked up to Scorpius. Scorpius put his hand on his wand. "Oh, he's going to hex me, I just know it," Scorpius thought to himself.

And this was when Scorpius became absolutely convinced that Albus Potter had lost his marbles. Al leaned forward and -"Oh, no, what now?" Scorpius thought to himself- gave Scorpius a solid kiss on the mouth.

Scorpius let out a little shriek. He tried jumping away from Al, but at some point Al had apparently put his arms around Scorpius. The two of them toppled forward onto Scorpius' bed. "I'm trapped!" though Scorpius. "He's gone completely mental and here I am squished under him."

Right when Scorpius was thinking that perhaps Al had merely planted him with the kiss of death, Al grinned, his eyes ever twinkling. "Come on. Aren't you curious?"

"What? No!" shrieked Scorpius. He tried to wriggle out from under Al. "Are you crazy?"

"Probably," said Al, before planting another kiss onto Scorpius. This one was longer, and Scorpius knew that he must be as red as a tomato and, oh! What the fuck was going on?

Finally, Scorpius gave a mighty shove, pushing Al off of him and onto the floor. "You're crazy!" shouted Scorpius. "I knew it. You're a bloody nutter."

Al smiled, his eyes still glimmering. "Sorry. Had to be done. It was an experiment."

"What? You wanted to see if I was a better kisser than your sister?" Scorpius screeched.

Albus laughed. "Not quite."

Right then Philip Nott walked into the room. There was Scorpius, lying down on his bed and as red as a cooked lobster. And beside him was Albus, on the ground and howling with laughter.

Al looked up at Nott. "You just missed the funniest thing," he said, still laughing.

Scorpius stood up and pushed past the very confused looking Nott. No way was he sleeping in the same room as that psychopath that night.


	5. In which Scorpius gets punched in the fa

**Chapter 5 - In which Scorpius gets punched in the face**

James Potter was having the strangest dream. He was in a room with his dad, only his father seemed much younger. And he felt very sure of himself and very afraid for some reason. And he knew that the pride was because he knew he was able and that he could do anything he wanted. And the fear was because he was very afraid for his father, like some source of hidden danger was around. And the he was flying, flying through the doorway, flying oh so far.

He woke up, still groggy. He brushed his teeth and changed into his school clothes. Classes didn't start for another hour, so he decided to head to the Room of Requirement to get a little practice in before school started.

After walking around for a while, thinking "I need room to practice in," though he couldn't shake how tired he was from his brain. Finally, the door appeared for James. There was the normal blank floor, and the normal mirrors on the walls and oh! A bed! James hadn't realized how tired he still was. Perhaps he should have just slept in and waited until later to practice. He walked up to the bed. Just a few minutes of sleep couldn't hurt…

"Holy shit!" James jumped back; there was somebody in the bed already.

The person gave a shriek and then fell out of the bed, the blanket covering him. He struggled to get the blanket off and then yelled, "What the fuck?!"

"Oh, it's just you," James said to the very confused and irritable looking Scorpius Malfoy.

"What're you doing in here?" Scorpius yelled.

"What're you doing in here?" James asked.

"Well, I was sleeping," Scorpius sniffed. "Besides, I asked you first."

"Why aren't you sleeping in your dormitory?" James asked.

"Because your psychotic brother…" Scorpius paused. "…Locked me out."

"Why? What'd you do?" asked James, suspicious.

"Um, I think he was made at me, because…" Scorpius thought quickly. He knew he'd have to come up with something believable. But what? "Because I kept bothering Lily."

SMACK!

James fist met Scorpius' nose with an excellent precision. "Ow! Shit!" Scorpius yelled, putting his hand over his nose. "What'd you do that for?"

"What the fuck did you do to my sister?" James yelled.

"What? Nothing," Scorpius said.

"Don't lie, you asshole!" James yelled. "You must've done something. You just admitted it."

"Alright, alright, I, um…" Think, Scorpius, think. "Swatted her on the ass and told her she'd been a naughty girl?"

James didn't believe him, but gave Scorpius another punch in the face just in case.

And with that, James strode out, knowing that he couldn't get back to sleep and wondering what he'd do with an extra fifty minutes on his hands.

~*~*~

The library was completely deserted by the time Al entered it. He walked through the aisles. He didn't know quite what he was looking for. Perhaps he just wanted to be somewhere where he wouldn't bump into anyone he knew.

So, of course, he did bump into somebody he knew.

Lily entered the library and returned a hefty book. Al noticed her through a space in the shelves and watched her turn and walk right towards him. "Don't let her come over here," Al thought to himself, wishing to keep to himself for the rest of the day. So, naturally, she came right over to him.

"Oh, hello," she said. "I saw you standing here and thought I'd say hi."

"You saw me through that space in the book shelf?" Al asked.

"Well, no, I saw you outside and I followed you in," Lily said. "I had a book to return, anyway."

"What do you want then?" Al asked.

"I want to talk to you," Lily said. "Dear Uncle Scorpius seems to think that you're going a bit mental."

Lily wasn't sure, but it looked like Al blushed just a tiny bit. "When did he talk to you?" he asked.

"A couple of days ago," she replied.

"Oh, okay," Al said. "So, what did he tell you?"

"Well, he told me that you tried throwing yourself off of the Astronomy Tower last year," Lily said. "After he said that, I started to take his word for it that you were going a bit psychotic."

"Oh, yeah, I forgot about that," Al said. "I wasn't really going to throw myself off. I was just checking something."

"Checking something?" Lily raised an eyebrow. "Checking something in the middle of the night by pretending to throw yourself off of a tower?"

Al's face whitened. "Lily… Do you ever worry that maybe somebody else is living in you?"

"Well, no," Lily said. "Not exactly. I mean, I don't hear little voices talking to me."

"No, I mean, like do you ever have the urge to do anything very out of character?" Al said. "And do you ever remember things that… never happened?"

"Oh, bugger," thought Lily. She looked up and met Al's eyes.

Al bent down and kissed her softly. This one lasted longer than the first. After a moment, he lifted his head. "Sorry. I just needed to test something out."

"Did you figure out what you needed to know?" Lily asked.

"I think so," Al said, before sweeping away out of the library.

~*~*~

James Potter was the man. Captain of the Gryffindor Quiddich team, now vice-president of the Hogwarts Dueling Club, and soon to be the defeater of four evil wizards (or witches), James felt confident in himself.

The first day of the dueling club had gone, well, about like what James had expected. There were lots of failed curses, a few bloody noses, and a couple of crying first years. "Um, good job everybody. Hope to see you all next week," James said. A few boys cheered; they'd been consistently cheering over the last hour every time somebody got hurt.

"That wasn't too good, was it?" Mickey asked.

"No, that was really… really… Well, there's a lot of potential," James said, walking out of the main hall.

"It must be difficult for you," Mickey said, "Being Harry Potter's son."

James stopped. "That was out of nowhere," he thought to himself. He turned around. "How so?"

"Well, I just mean that he defeated the most dangerous and terrible wizard of all time, and you spent today defeating… Hugo." Mickey shrugged. "I just imagine that it must be difficult for you at times."

"Well, you really hit the nail right on the head," James muttered. More loudly, he said, "Yeah, I suppose so. It wouldn't be so bad except…"

"Except what?" Mickey asked.

"Well, it's one thing that I'm apparently incapable of making my father proud, but it's another that for some reason he thinks that Al is the greatest thing since sliced bread," James said. "That's what really gets to me."

"Maybe he just has more of a connection with Al," Mickey suggested.

"Why? I'm the one who's actually like my dad. I play Quiddich like him, I'm a Gryffindor like him, I have friends like his, I even have glasses like his! And yet for some reason he likes brooding, sniveling, sarcastic Al. What's up with that?" Wow. James had never even come close to saying all that to anyone before.

"Maybe that's just it. Maybe he like Al because he doesn't act like him."

"…That's stupid."

"Well, think about it. You have Harry Potter, the triumphant hero who can do no wrong," Mickey began, "And outwardly he has to go around and act perfect, suppressing his darker side. So, he has two sons, one of them who acts like he does outwardly, and the other who embodies all his secret inclinations. He then decides to live vicariously through his younger son, because he's incapable of acting out that part of himself on his own."

James eyes were as wide as saucers. "Mickey, that may just be the smartest thing I've ever heard you say. I don't know what it means, but it was really smart."

"Thanks," Mickey said. "Mother says I was blessed by a Swafholmer as a baby."

"Um, yes." With the word "Swafholmer," James' respect for Mickey's intelligence had quickly diminished.

One thing James was able to take from Mickey's speech, however, was that maybe it was okay if he did bad things once in a while, because nobody could or perhaps should be truly noble all the time.

James smirked. He had an idea.

~*~*~

Al was uncertain about the specifics, but he definitely had a plan cooking up. He searched through his dormitory before he finally found the rocks Scorpius had found on their first day at Hogwarts this year in the Forbidden Forest. They were in a box with all the other little things Scorpius had randomly found throughout the last few weeks. But the one Al wanted was right on top, shining up at him and begging him to take it.

Al inspected the stone. He ran his finger along the crack in it. His father had told him once about a stone that could bring back the dead. Well, not bring them back entirely, but close. Somehow, Al knew that this was it. Actually, Al knew how he knew. A part if him -and he didn't know how large this part was- had seen it before.

"What am I going to do?" Al thought to himself, looking for a quill and parchment. Once he found them, he made a list. "The stone," it began. He made a check mark next to it. "The cloak," he wrote next. It wouldn't be hard to get. "The wand," he added. That would be more difficult, but not impossible. "A body," he then wrote. Or at least part of a body. And finally, "A name." Check.

Al was shaking. He sat down on his bed, looking at the list. He didn't know how he knew exactly what he would need to do in order to obtain his goal, but he imagined that the part of him that had recognized the stone to begin with knew exactly what it was that he needed to do.

No, the name part he'd come up with on his own. That was the key to it, really.

Now, don't let all this confuse you. If you must know, Al was planning to create a supposedly impossible spell. At fifteen years old, he had stumbled upon the secret to an incredible idea, not through study, but through a piece of him that had always known it.

Albus Severus Potter was going to raise the dead.


	6. In which James and Lily contemplate zomb

**Chapter 6 - In which James and Lily contemplate zombies**

James was out on a late night walk. Technically, walking around at night in Hogwarts was against the rules, but frankly all of the professors were just too tired to care.

Much to his surprise, he ran into Lily on his way back to the castle. "What are you doing out here?" he asked.

"What are you doing here, James?" Lily asked in reply.

"Yeah, but I'm older. I can walk around at any given time and it's okay. But you're like ten or something."

"Twelve, you dick."

"Yeah, I know. I was just testing you."

The two of them sat down on the grass. "I have a feeling something bad's about to happen," Lily stated.

James looked around his shoulder. "What? Zombie Voldemort's going to pop out behind me and eat our brains?"

Lily rolled her eyes. "No, nothing quite that stupid. And not even right now. Just… soon."

"Okay, so what do you think's going to happen?" James asked. "If it doesn't involve zombies, I'm out of ideas."

Lily sat back and looked up at the stars. "Sometimes I feel like I'm not in control of my own life. What do you think?"

James shrugged. "I suppose we all have inclinations that we can't control. But in the end we always have a choice."

"I mean sometimes I feel like I don't have a choice," Lily said. "Like somebody else is controlling me, like I'm a puppet or something."

"Maybe you're being possessed by Voldemort's ghost," James offered.

"I doubt it," Lily muttered. "Besides, it's not like I'm doing bad things because of it. I'm just doing things… things that don't make much sense for me to be doing. Like I have thoughts that aren't really my own."

"Yeah, that doesn't sound crazy at all," James said.

Lily scowled. "Yesterday, I had this memory about my sister."

"We don't have a sister."

"I know, you dip shit," Lily said. "Anyway, I remembered that we were talking, and then we were yelling, and she pushed me into a rose bush. It took me an hour to get all of the thorns out of my hair and clothes. My hands were bleeding afterwards. Then I snapped out of it and I remembered that I don't really have a sister and that I was never pushed into a rose bush. But it had seemed so real."

"Yeah, that's weird," James shrugged. "So, this sister, is she hot?"

Lily smirked. "She was the sort of girl who could probably be pretty if she wanted to." Lily sat straight up and looked at James. "Don't you ever remember people you've never actually met?"

James' cheeks reddened. He thought of the two imaginary boys he dreamed about occasionally. "Nope, I can't say I do."

"Why do I think you're lying?" Lily questioned.

"Um… Because I am?"

"I thought so," Lily said. "You know, sometimes I really believe in reincarnation, like maybe I was around in another life, and that's why I have all of these memories. What do you think?"

James shrugged. "I don't really have any religious beliefs, I guess."

"You must have ideas, though," Lily said. "Don't you ever just wonder?"

"I don't know. I guess I don't like to think about it."

Suddenly Lily sprung forward, putting her arms around James.

"Uh, Lil…"

Without warning, she kissed him.

James pulled back. "What the fuck, Lil?" He wiped off his mouth. "That's not the sort of thing you usually do to your brother."

"Al kissed me before," Lily said.

James froze. "What?"

"Twice actually, I think."

"Kissed like, kissed kissed?"

"I don't know," Lily said. "And I think I might have kissed him back. But it wasn't my fault. She made me do it."

"Who made you do it?" James stood up, panicking.

"The girls who lives inside me," Lily said. "She wanted to kiss him, just to see what it would be like. And she wanted to kiss you, too, because she loves you."

"You're freaking me out, Lily," James said, backing away. "There's nobody living inside of you."

"Do you love her, too, James?" Lily asked. "She's always wondered. Or do you just think of her as a prize, something you won but that you never really needed."

"Lily, stop it…"

"Or maybe she was always just a sister to you, and you were just confusing that kind of love for another," Lily continued.

James Potter thought his brain was going to explode. To say that he was confused would be an understatement. "You're a fucking psychopath," he said. "I love you, Lily, but you're seriously crazy." He turned and began walking away.

"James, wait."

But James didn't wait. Instead, he just walked faster away. He had never heard Lily rave like this. He didn't know any specifics, but he was sure that it was Al's fault. "I could just kill him," James said to himself as he ran to his dormitory.

~*~*~

Al was aware of the fact that most people didn't like him. Not that everyone necessarily disliked him; he just wasn't the sort of person most people would willingly choose to be friends with. To extent, Al had always been confused about why his father, the man everyone in the wizarding world adored, would love him so much.

Though Al didn't know the answer to this question, what he did know was that having his father's unconditional love definitely had its perks. It was the weekend, and Al was going home for the day via portkey. Normally, leaving Hogwarts at any time during the school year was not allowed except in the case of an emergency. But Al had only to ask his father if he could go home for the day and, no questions asked, Harry Potter agreed and sent an owl to Hogwarts requesting permission for his son to come home that Saturday. The Hogwarts staff, of course, agreed immediately. Harry Potter, the savior of the wizarding world, was not somebody you ever said no to, unless you wanted everyone else to think that you were a total dick.

When Al arrived in front of their house, Harry was already waiting outside. "Hey there," he said.

"Hey, Dad," Al responded.

"Was there any specific reason why you wanted to come home?" Harry asked.

"No," Al said. "I just needed to be here." Al hated lying to his father, but this was definitely a lie.

"Do you want to go on a walk?"

"Yeah. Sure."

On their walk, the two barely spoke. Most of the time, when the were together, they didn't need to speak. They understood each other.

Finally, Harry asked, "How are James and Lily doing?"

Al shrugged. "The same."

"Are you and James getting along?"

"About as much as usual," Al responded.

Harry adjusted his glasses. "I should really just get contacts," he said to himself.

"What do you do if you want to do something good, but everyone thinks that the good thing you want to do is bad?" Al asked.

"Sometimes everyone can be wrong," Harry said.

"That's what I thought."

They continued on their walk for quite some time before returned to their home. At the end of the day when Al went home, Harry didn't even notice that his old cloak and wand were missing.

~*~*~

It was the evening, and James was pissed. The day before, he hadn't been able to find Al anywhere. Then, this afternoon, he had found out that Al had randomly been given consent to go home for a day. Finally, he found Al outside. Al was sitting on the ground by himself, reading.

"Hey, you prick," James said, giving Al a solid kick in the chest. Al dropped his book. "What are you doing back at school so early?"

Al stood up. "What do you mean?"

"I mean you went home yesterday, shit head, and now you're back," James said. "Let me guess, you and dad probably went on a long walk and had a meaningful talk and everything is well in the world, right?"

"James, what the fuck are you talking about?" Al asked.

"I don't see why he likes you," James said. "You stupid son of a bitch."

"Son of a bitch? James, we have the same mom."

James furrowed his brow. "Shut up. I'm trying to tell you off. Now, where was I?" James thought for a moment. "Oh, right. What I was saying is that I don't see why Dad likes you best. If he could see how you really are, he'd despise you."

"How I really am? Tell me, how am I really?" Al asked.

"You're a whiney, uncaring, stupid mother fucker, that's how you are!" James yelled. He was drawing quite a crowd around him at this point. He didn't care, though.

"What are you even mad about, James?" Al asked. "I didn't do anything to you."

"What about her?" James whispered through gritted teeth.

"Who?"

"Our fucking sister, man," James hissed. "What did you do to her? She was raving like a fucking lunatic the other night, and she said something about you."

Al's face went pale. "What did she say."

"Well, that you kissed her for one," James said, continuing in a hissing whisper. "Kissed her in a very not brotherly sort of way."

"James, I…"

"Don't tell me that it wasn't you and somebody inside of you made you do it," James said. "Because I'm not falling for that crap."

Al had no idea what to say to this. Finally, he said, "I don't have to explain myself to you, you stupid, arrogant asshole."

James fist hit Al's cheek with a fury.

Al stumbled backwards, but caught himself just in time to keep from falling over. He pulled out his want.

Unfortunately, James' wand was already out, and in a flash Al found himself being thrown upside down in the air, dropping his wand onto the ground.

Judging by the looks on their faces, nobody could be sure who looked more surprised by this: James or Al.

"How did you do that?" Al asked, hanging in the air by one leg.

"I, uh… I don't… Hey, shut up!" James pointed his wand back up at Al.

Right then, Lily came through the crowd. "James, what are you doing?"

"Defending your honor, sis," James said.

Lily rolled her eyes. "Everyone's watching, you know."

"I know. I don't care," James said.

"Seriously, James, put him…"

"Shut up, you stupid bitch!" Al yelled. "Let me handle this by myself. Fuck!"

Though the crowd around them hadn't heard most of what the three siblings were talking about, they had definitely heard this. Lily's face reddened. "Fine. See if I care. Have fun getting down on your own, dickhead." She stomped off, leaving Al hanging.

James turned back to Al. He grabbed onto his arms, pulling his brother down. Al fell with a magnificent thud onto the ground. Before Al could quite collect himself, James sent another kick in his direction, this time hitting Al's face and breaking his nose.

James turned and looked at the crowd. "Now, if you'll all excuse me, I have some family business to take care of." He then proceeded to beat the shit out of Al. If there was one thing James Potter was good at, it was beating the shit out of people.

~*~*~

It was night time when Lily found Al, sitting bloody on the ground. "Is it just me, or does life suck?" Al asked.

"No, if pretty much just sucks," Lily said.

"I just got my ass kicked in front of the entire school and not a single person went to get a teacher. I guess that's a good indicator of how popular I am."

Lily helped Al up. "Come on. Let's get you to the bathroom to clean up."

Al knew immediately what bathroom it was that they were heading to. "Hey, Myrtle," Al said as they entered the room.

Moaning Myrtle inspected Al. "Your brother's a lot cuter than you."

"Thanks," Al replied. He sat down next to a sink. Lily came up to him and began soaking a towel in the sink. She handed it to him and he wiped the blood off of his face. "Thanks, Lily."

"No problem."

"Why did you come back?"

"Well, at first I was really pissed off that you insulted me in front of everyone like that," Lily began.

"I know, I'm really sorry about that. I hated myself immediately for saying anything," Al said.

"I know. That's why I came back." Lily began soaking a fresh towel. "We're too proud, I think. Anyone attacks or insults us, we immediately go and try to hurt everyone around us. Well, I'm tired of doing that Al."

"I know. Me, too." Al brushed a hand over his broken nose. It hurt like a bitch.

"Let's not repeat our mistakes," Lily said. "Deal?"

"Deal," Al said.

Lily slipped her hand into Al's. "Alright, let's go see if the infirmary is still open."


	7. In which James and Scorpius discuss sex

**Chapter 7 - In which James and Scorpius discuss sex ed**

James Potter had encountered a problem with his plan. After weeks of thinking of it, he had finally found his dark wizard. Unfortunately, Al had yet to do anything actually evil.

Voldemort had been an undeniably evil wizard. He was a murderer, a monster, the sort of person all people hated and feared. Al on the other hand… Well, he was definitely a dick and nobody really liked him, but all he had on him was one kiss with a twelve year old.

So, James decided to wait. He would be patient and wait for Al to actually do something completely evil. And then wham! James would come down upon him with a vengeance.

James was waiting for his brother when Al finally got out of the infirmary. "What do you want?" Al asked, his eyes narrowed.

"I know you're up to something," James said. Actually, James didn't know this. It was just a really good guess. "And I'm going to stop you."

"You're not going to stop anything," Al said. He walked past James, but then turned back to say. "Someday I'm going to be the greatest wizard this world has ever seen."

"Yeah? Well I'm going to be the wizard who defeats the greatest wizard in the world, making me the new greatest wizard in the world by default!"

"…Is that the best comeback you could come up with?" Al asked.

"Um… I'm really tired. Nobody can come up with good comebacks when they're tired, you know?"

Al sighed. "Well, I've got some evil deeds to carry out. See you."

James leaned against the wall and sighed. No, so far his plan was definitely not going smoothly.

~*~*~

"What do you need help with again?" Scorpius asked.

"I need help bringing back the dead," Al clarified.

"Bringing back the dead as in… zombies?"

"No. Just bringing them back."

Scorpius shook his head. "You're fucking crackers. You're a bloody nutter. You're…"

"Look, do you want to help or not?"

Scorpius thought for a moment. "Alright. I have nothing better to do."

The two of them walked into the main hall. Immediately, a group of third year girls, upon seeing Scorpius, scream and ran back to their house table.

"Hello, ladies!" Scorpius called, waving to them. They sat down at the Slytherin table. "So… Word has it your brother beat the shit out of you."

"He didn't beat the shit out of me," Al said. He thought for a moment. "Well, at least not literally."

"Tough luck," Scorpius said. "So, what're you going to do to get revenge?"

"I'm going to… I'm going to raise the dead."

"That's your revenge?" Scorpius asked. "No poison? No beheading? No killing curse?"

"No. When I become the greatest wizard in the world and my brother becomes the next Hogwarts janitor, that will be revenge enough."

"Hogwarts has a janitor?"

"You know what I mean."

Scorpius took a gigantic bite of chicken. "Oh my fuck, this is so good. You have to try this. It's better than sex."

"How would you know?" a girl across the table called.

"Yeah, it doesn't count if you do it with yourself!" another girl yelled.

Scorpius looked around. "How did everybody hear me say that?"

"You talk really loud," All said. "I've been meaning to tell you."

"Well, damn," Scorpius said, taking another disgustingly large bite of chicken. When he spoke next, he attempted to speak as quietly as he could, which still wasn't very quiet, but at least nobody around could make out his words exactly. "So, what do you need help with for your bringing back the D-E-A-D plan?"

Al leaned closer towards Scorpius and whispered, "I need help stealing a C-O-R-P-S-E."

"W-E-L-L, shit," said Scorpius.

~*~*~

The first Quiddich match of the season was Gryffindor against Slytherin. Playing against Slytherin was always James' favorite because it always seemed so epic. There just wasn't the same amount of suspense when playing against, say, Hufflepuff.

Over the last two decades, brooms had definitely taken a turn for the worse. Gone were the days when a Quiddich player would be happy to receive a speeding Nimbus 2000. Since then, sure brooms had become faster, but they'd also become smaller. Supposedly small brooms were supposed to make players less likely to run into goal posts, but quite frankly they just looked stupid. It was like riding a feather duster. James' broom was a mere foot and a half long. Under normal conditions, it was clearly a very small broom. But while being ridden on, it just looked like… well… a dick. An erect, six inch dick. And it didn't help that players had to hold onto the tip in order to steer.

"My broomstick's bigger than your broomstick, Potter," Scorpius called from across the field. Scorpius was the Slytherin team's seeker.

"Yeah, well, it's not size that counts, it's how you use it!" Back comeback, James.

During the beginning of the game, James hung lazily over head. There was no point in searching for the golden snitch during the beginning of the game. If the match lasted under half an hour, everyone would be pissed.

James had never understood what the point of the non-seeker players was. In comparison to the other players winning ten points here and there, James could win 150 points just by catching one ball. And to top it off, he would end the game, and everyone knew that a seeker would have to be stupid to catch the snitch while his team wasn't winning. So, every game always came down to who the better seeker was. And James was definitely a better seeker than Scorpius. In fact, Slytherin had never won a game against Gryffindor so long as James had been seeker.

"Hey, Potter," Scorpius said, floating lazily towards him. "So, how about that sister of yours? She's quite a catch, ay?"

"I swear I'll kick you off your fucking broomstick and laugh when you hit the ground so hard you look like a pancake," James growled.

"Or how about that cousin or yours? Rose. Ah, Rose. I swear, I dream about that chest every night."

James rolled his eyes. "Malfoy, you stupid virgin. You don't even know what you're talking about."

"Why does everyone assume that I'm a virgin?" Scorpius whined.

"Because no girl would be stupid enough to get near you," James said. "Let me guess, you've never even kissed anybody, huh?"

"I have so!" Scorpius said. "Plenty!" Actually, he'd only ever kissed one person. Or, more accurately, only one person had ever kissed him, and it had lead to Scorpius avoid the person for nearly a week, going as far as to duck behind statues and garbage cans every time he'd seen Al walking by.

Scorpius frowned. That was a bit sad, wasn't it? His first kiss had been from his psychopathic friend. His psychopathic _man_-friend.

"Okay, do tell, who have you kissed?" James questioned.

"Your mother," Scorpius said. "And boy, does that bitch know how to use her tongue."

This time James really did try to kick Scorpius off his broom.

Sure enough, neither of them moved for half an hour. They spent that time engaging in awkward conversation. Well, more accurately, Scorpius spent that half hour engaging in awkward conversation and James spent that half hour ignoring Scorpius.

"So, I'm sitting in Charms, and I have this really obvious erection that I'm trying to hide under my desk. So, of course right then Flitwick walks by, and for some reason he's drinking a 7 Up, which he accidentally spills all over my desk and it all floods over onto my pants. So, Flitwick's embarrassed at this point, and he insists on cleaning it up himself. As he's cleaning my desk, he keeps telling me that I should go to the bathroom to get cleaned up, but of course I don't want to get up because then everyone will see this massive boner I'm still supporting. Anyway, then Flitwick offers to clean my pants, too, and he points his wand right at my crotch. And halfway through saying this cleansing charm, his eyes grow really wide and he stops speaking. Then he tells everyone he feels ill and that class is dismissed early. But I still can't just get up with everyone there so I have to wait until every other student is out of the room, and the whole time Flitwick's just staring at me like I'm the fucking devil," Scorpius said.

James sighed. So far, ignoring Scorpius was not helping one bit, because that just meant that the Slytherin talked more. And the more he talked, the stupider things he talked about.

"I swear, the little prick runs away every time he sees me," Scorpius went on. "But it's not like it was my fault. I mean, seriously, what kind of guy doesn't have an occasional boner in class? Unless you spend the whole time thinking about zits and old people the whole time, you're bound to…"

"Why are you still talking?" James butted in. "You've just been talking for half an hour straight and I haven't said a word. Take a hint: I… don't… care."

Scorpius sniffed dryly. "Who says I was talking to you? Maybe I was conversing with one of your girlfriends invisible friends. What's she on about now? Chazzwazzers or something like that."

"Swafholmers," James corrected, immediately feeling sorry that he did.

"Oh, right, Swafholmers. Gee, I sure love Swafholmers. I have a pet Swafholmer you know. Yup, I take him on walks everyday and…"

"Jesus Christ, just shut the fuck up!"

Scorpius looked down. "Hey! The snitch!"

James looked down immediately. Unfortunately, there was nothing to see.

"Ha, ha, made you look," Scorpius taunted. "Anyway, where was I? Oh, right, my point with that story was that it really seems like Hogwarts should have a sex ed class, don't you think? I mean, maybe if everyone was comfortable talking about erections, I wouldn't have to go out of my way to hide them and Flitwick wouldn't be deathly afraid of me. But, of course, we're never going to have a sex ed class here for two reason. The first is that, unless they were teaching sex related magic, they couldn't have the class, because it has nothing to do with spells and potions and whatnot. They don't even teach English. I swear, half the kids here probably don't even know how to read. The education system here really is a travesty. Kids spend their first eleven years being sheltered by their parents and only being taught what their parents want to teach them, and then they come here and just learn how to turn rats into cups. I've never once had a science class, you know that? Someone said the word 'evolution' the other day and I had no fucking clue what they were talking about. I don't see why we wouldn't learn science, though. Wizards in general aren't a particularly religious bunch. You'd think they'd be open to the idea of it at least. Anyway, then the second reason we're never going to have a sex ed class here is because there are a lot of people like my parents who spend their whole lives with sticks up their asses and would absolutely forbid to have the word 'penis' mentioned in Hogwarts because it's simply too vulgar."

James looked up. "Do you not get along with your parents?"

"Well, my dad just sort of sits there and stares at walls," Scorpius said. "So, he's easy to get along with. But my mom, boy can she yell. You know, one time I walked into the house wearing this pink 'I heart Muggles' shirt just to be an asshole. My dad, of course, didn't even notice. My mom went berserk, though, telling me to take it off before anyone saw and I shamed my family even further. Unfortunately, right then my grandparents walked in. Well, good old Grandmother Narcissa pretended to be ill so that she could leave the room, and jolly old Grandfather Lucius decided that a little cruciates curse was what I needed. So there I am, in my pink fucking 'I heart Muggles' shirt, rolling around on the ground and screaming, and when it's finally over my father looks away from the wall and says, 'Did I miss something?'"

James was about to respond when Scorpius suddenly leapt forward on his broom. James zoomed after him. James was slightly disoriented, though, keeping him from seeing quite where the golden snitch was. Scorpius reached his arms out and clap! He caught the snitch. He held it up. "I've been playing this stupid fucking game since my second year, and I have never once caught this thing while playing against you. At least I know now, just distract James Potter long enough and he'll forget what he's supposed to be doing."

The Slytherins, and a few students from other houses, were cheering so loud that Scorpius almost couldn't hear the colorful words James was throwing at him.


	8. In which Al attempts to explain the situ

**Chapter 8 - In which Al attempts to explain the situation**

Escaping to Godric's Hallow in the middle of the night would have been next to impossible at Hogwarts twenty years ago. Al felt lucky that so many of the teachers were either old and tired or young and clueless. Besides, the world was safe, who cared what the students did?

"We're going to get caught," Scorpius said, though he showed very little worry about it.

"Nobody care's," Al said. "We can do anything."

"Okay, but if you end up being a dementor's bitch because of this, don't say I didn't warn you." Scorpius pulled out an apple from his pocket and bit into it.

"Do you mind?" Al asked.

"I'm hungry."

"This is a terrible time to eat, Scorpius."

"Hey, don't think I'm going to help you dig."

Al sighed. "Fine. I just need you to help me transport her."

Because he was under age, Al couldn't use his wand to dig up Lily Evens-Potter's grave. The whole age limitation on magic had always seemed a bit stupid to him. It wasn't as if somebody would be careless one day, and then wake up the next day and say, "Why, it's my seventeenth birthday! I suppose it's time to start acting mature!" Everyone knew that most magic related accidents and deaths were caused by wizards at the age of seventeen, who were so overjoyed by their newfound freedom that they carelessly used all sorts of magic at all times for all sorts of stupid reasons. Al couldn't help but feel that getting rid of the age limit would, if nothing else, teach people to start being more careful with magic at a younger age. But, whatever. Al picked up a shovel and began to dig.

"So, are you sure you know how to bring back the dead?" Scorpius asked, apple bits flying from his mouth.

"I'm positive," Al replied, digging.

"How do you know?" Scorpius continued.

"I just do," Al said.

"Do explain."

Al sighed. "It doesn't make a lot of sense, but I think there are bits of other people's souls living inside of me."

"Yeah, that doesn't make a lot of sense."

"Shut up. Anyway," Al went on, "I first really started thinking about this idea because of the paintings at Hogwarts. They are imprinted with the soul of the person pictured, giving the illusion that the person is still alive. However, unlike with a Horecrux, it does not actually contain the person's soul."

"A whore what?"

"Don't worry about it." Al kept on digging. "Anyway, as I was saying, I came upon the conclusion that it's entirely possible that people could be similar, containing the imprint of a soul. But, if the person displayed characteristics of the person who's soul was imprinted onto them, the imprint would grow until it closely resembled a soul, thinking and acting for itself."

"Yeah, that's reasonable," Scorpius scoffed, still nibbling at his apple.

"It is, though. I mean, it's hard to understand, but trust me, I've thought about it, and it's entirely reasonable." Al had cleared away little over a foot of earth at this point. "So, as I was trying to tell you, an imprinted soul wouldn't grow if the person it was imprinting on wasn't like them to some extent. But if the person it's imprinting on displays similar moods and patterns, the soul will thrive, almost to the point of overtaking the host body."

"You sound like some sort of creepy scientist," Scorpius said. "Not that I know anything about science, but…"

"And then," Al began, louder, "The soul would attempt to carry out its own deeds, ignoring the host body's true soul. This would cause a person to act strangely, with sharp mood swings and out of character actions. Now, normally this would be the end of the story, a person forever trapped carrying out a dead person's will. But, fortunately for us, there were the Peverell brothers."

"Are they supposed to be like the Brothers Grimm or something?"

"Seriously, shut up," Al ordered. "So, the Peverell brothers are known for attempting to cheat death. They created three objects: the elder wand, an invisibility cloak, and a stone that could bring back the dead."

"Hey, it's like rock, paper, scissors! Let's see, stone beats cloak, which beats wand, which beats…"

"As I was saying, most people believed that their flight from death was a metaphor. What I believe is that there could literally be a way to cheat death if the three were combined."

"So, let's say the Grimm brothers or whoever did stumble upon the secret to kicking death's ass. Then why has nobody ever heard of people bringing others back from the dead?" Scorpius asked, moderately interested.

"Because the Peverell brothers never truly figured out how to use their creations," Al answered. "First off, bringing back the dead would require putting their three inventions together, and most likely none of the brothers were fond of this communistic way of thinking. Second, they probably never figured out the secret ingredient: the soul imprint."

"Okay, so how do you do it?" Scorpius asked.

"Well, for one, it has to be performed by the one who contains the imprint of the soul of the person being brought back," Al explained. "They have to have the persons body or a piece of their body in order so that the body can rebuild once its soul is in tact. The person performing the spell must use the elder want and they must cover the dead body with the cloak to shield it from dying again immediately." Scorpius began to open his mouth, but Al continued, "I know, you're wondering how the cloak can shield the body from death. My guess is the cloak has some of the same traits at a philosopher's stone, keeping the body alive long enough to rebuild. Anyway, in order to perform the spell, the person casting it must have the stone that can bring back the person's soul. They then say a spell that will shoot both the soul and the imprint of the soul into the person's body, and when the two soul pieces mix, the body is reanimated."

"Okay, so how do you know if you have a chunk of some dead guys soul in you?" Scorpius asked.

"You just do," Al said.

"And who decides who gets whose soul."

Al smirked. "You parents." In response to the confused look on Scorpius' face, Al decided to explain. "It's almost perfect, really: it's all in the name. When your parents name you after a person, they're imprinting the persons soul onto yours. And, because they probably decided to name you after the person because you reminded them of the person in some way, you're most likely going to display similar traits to the person who has been imprinted onto you, allowing the imprint to grow into a soul bit."

"Um… Why?"

Al shrugged. "I don't know. Honestly, I think all of this was just so that somebody could only be brought back if they were loved. I mean, who would give their child the name of someone they hated? It's just sort of a precaution to make sure nobody tries to resurrect a bunch of dicks."

"Okay, next question: Isn't this, like, evil? Not that I'm against it either way, it's just…" Scorpius took a bite of his ravished apple.

Al shrugged in reply. "Jesus brought back the dead."

"I guess," Scorpius said. "I don't know a lot about religion."

"Fuck this," Al said. He threw his shovel to the side and pulled out his wand. With a swish and a flick, the grave was completely clear of dirt. "The ministry doesn't really care, anyway." Al levitated the coffin next to him and sat it down in the grass. He got down on his hands and knees and began to pry open the box.

"One more question," Scorpius said.

"What?"

Scorpius took the last possible bite from the apple core. "Why her?"

Al swung open the lid of the coffin. He reached inside, tracing his fingers over his grandmother's scull. "Because she never should have died in the first place."

~*~*~

James was sure Al was up to something. All morning, Al had been muttering to himself, and Rose told James that Al had excused himself from his classes earlier, claiming to be sick. "Good thing he's up to something," James thought to himself. He'd been considering just doing something bad himself and making it look like Al had done it, but he'd decided against it on account that it was one of the most un-Gryffindory things he'd ever heard of. So, now he just needed to wait for Al to do something bad, and in the mean time he had to because even stronger at defensive spells and try as hard as possible to stay out of trouble.

"You seem tired," Mickey said to James after this week's dueling club meeting was over.

James grunted in reply.

"What are you going to do to him?" Mickey asked.

James' head shot up. "To who?"

"Your brother," Mickey said. "You were staring at him all during dinner and you kept muttering to yourself about him during dueling practice."

"It's just… What do you do if you know somebody's going to do something bad?" James asked.

"Do you know he's going to do something bad?" Mickey asked in response.

"Well, not entirely, but I'm sure he's up to something," James said. "He's always been a bit off, but lately he's just been acting completely loony, and I think he's going to do something bad. Call it a gut feeling."

"Well, what do you want to do?" Mickey asked. "Help him or defeat him?"

"I just want to stop him," James replied.

"Stop him by getting him help or by killing him?" Mickey asked.

James shrugged. "Whichever works."

"Well, I believe in rehabilitation over punishment myself, but you do what you need to, James." Mickey cocked her head and stared at James. "You know, you're as brave as a Gryffindor, as smart as a Ravenclaw, and as cunning as a Slytherin, but you're not nearly as nice as a Hufflepuff."

"What's that supposed to mean?" James questioned.

"I just think you should give your brother a chance is all," Mickey said. With that, she turned and walked away.

Giving his brother a chance did seem like the right thing to do. But something inside of James wanted Al dead, and he felt very ready to listen to the angry voices in his head.

~*~*~

Al found Lily in the library. "I have to talk to you," he said.

She closed the book she'd been reading. "Alright. What is it?"

Al opened his mouth to speak, but closed it before any words came out. Finally, he said, "Do you trust me?"

Lily looked into his green eyes. "No, I don't. I'm sorry."

"Do you trust even a small part of me?" Al asked.

Lily thought for a moment. "Yes. There are parts of you I trust."

"I love you, you know that?" Al said.

"In what way?" Lily asked him.

"As a sister, as a daughter, as a lover," Al replied. "Isn't that odd?"

"Immensely so," little Lily Potter replied.

Al sighed. "Lily, there's something I have to do. Do you trust me to always do what's right?"

"Sometimes," Lily replied.

"Do you trust me to never harm you?"

"Sometimes."

"If you trust me, me as a whole, even a little, close your eyes."

Lily closed her eyes. She felt Al's warm lips on hers. Even after he'd drawn away, she kept her eyes closed. She heard Al speak. "Impirio." And then she didn't hear anything for a long time.


	9. In which Lily breathes

**Chapter 9 - In which Lily breathes**

James was walking around, muttering to himself. He wondered why he hated his brother so much. Was it really because their father loved Al so much more? Or was there something else?

He didn't always hate Al. Sometimes, he had loved his brother dearly. He remembered when they were younger, they'd gotten along well enough. He'd loved the Al that always had a twinkle in his eyes, that joked and cared deeply about everyone. But this piece of Al showed itself rarely. Then there was the piece of his brother he hated the most, this dark, twisted side that hated James back with a fury.

In the end, James had no idea who his brother was, and his brother had no idea who he was.

"I need a place to be alone, I need a place to be alone…" James kept on muttering to himself. Finally, the door to the Room of Requirements appears. James was surprised to find that the door was locked. "Well, fuck," James said.

He sat down outside the door, his eyes narrowed and his brow furrowed. Somebody was in there already. And he had a feeling he knew who it was.

~*~*~

"This is bad, this is bad, this is so bad…" Scorpius said over and over.

"Would you mind shutting up?" Al asked. "I have to make sure I have everything. Invisibility cloak, check. Elder wand, check…"

"Corpse, check. Bewitched twelve year old, check…"

"Shut up," Al repeated. "I want to hurry up and get this over with."

"This is so bad, this is so so so bad…"

"I finally figured out what spell it is I need to use," Al said.

"Well isn't that just fucking fantastic?" Scorpius said, pacing around the room.

"It's the killing curse," Al replied. "Avada kedavra. I thought about it, and I realized that if it has the power to rip a soul out of a body, it has the power to put it back in. Does that make sense?"

"No, it does not make sense. Nothing fucking makes sense. Oh, man…" Scorpius continued pacing around the room.

Al covered Lily Evans body with the invisibility cloak. The younger and much more alive Lily stood over her, the elder wand in her hands, and her eyes very unseeing.

"I'm so glad I just went to the bathroom, because otherwise I would definitely piss myself right now."

"Get a grip on yourself," Al said. "Alright do you have the stone."

"Yeah, it's right here," Scorpius said. "Oh, shit shit shit…"

"Okay, call her."

Scorpius was shaking, badly. "Uh, Lily darling, perhaps you should come out here. I can't ravish you unless your spirit's in the room with me…"

Al sighed. "Please don't talk to my grandmother like that."

"Seriously, Lily, get out here or your fucking lunatic grandson is going to kill me."

Lily Evans' soul rose. She had just enough time to say, "What's going o…" before Al tapped the younger Lily on the shoulder and said, "Now."

The younger Lily pointed her want at the older Lily's corpse and said, "Avada kedavra."

The older Lily's spirit flushed forward, flying towards her bones. A stream of smoke came from out of the younger Lily's mouth, circling the bones as well. There was a green flash, a flash so great and so bright Al felt almost blinded for a moment.

"It's happening," Al said.

"SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!" Scorpius replied.

~*~*~

James had the very unsettling feeling that something had just happened. He stood up and banged on the door of the Room of Requirements.

~*~*~

The green light subsided and the younger Lily fell to the floor. Al stepped over her and bent down to take the invisibility cloak off of the other Lily.

~*~*~

James kept on banging on the door. "Al! Open up! Open up!"

~*~*~

Al pulled the invisibility cloak off of Lily.

~*~*~

"Damn it!" James said.

~*~*~

"Oh, shit!" Scorpius said.

~*~*~

James was screaming

~*~*~

Lily was breathing.

~*~*~

James was crying.

~*~*~

After so many years, Lily was breathing.

~*~*~

"Lily?" James called. "Lily, are you in there?"

~*~*~

Lily opened her eyes.

~*~*~

"She's in there," James thought to himself. "I know she's in there."

~*~*~

Al fell to his knees. He was crying.

~*~*~

"What the fuck's going on?" James thought to himself.

~*~*~

"What's going on?" Lily asked, her voice hoarse.

~*~*~

James got up and ran, ran as fast and as far as he could.

~*~*~

"You're alive," Al said to Lily. "You're alive."


	10. In which James and Scorpius discuss soap

**Chapter 10 - In which James and Scorpius discuss soap**

James sat in his bed, shaking. He knew something terrible -something incredible?- had just happened. He reached into his trunk, and pulled out a bottle of pills. He used to pop pills all the time. A lot of people did. Much more convenient than popping potions.

With the help of the pills, James began to doze off, and then he finally fell asleep.

He dreamt of a boy who looked a lot like him. Brown eyes, dark hair, glasses. He recognized this person immediately as James Potter. The other one.

"Something just happened," the other James said.

"I know," James replied.

"You were right about him being up to something," the other James said.

"Is it something bad?" James asked.

"He's playing God," the other James said. "A terrible God who picks and chooses who lives and who dies."

"What do I do?" James asked.

"The only thing that can destroy a god is another god," the other James said. "You have to make yourself into a god. You have to become an immovable object to his unstoppable force. Only then can you keep him from destroying all those around him."

"What will happen if I can't?" James asked.

"People will die," the other James replied. "Innocent people will die. It always happens when somebody becomes as powerful as he's going to become."

The older James began to fade out. "Wait!" James called out to him. But the older James didn't come back, and the younger James fell into a deeper sleep.

~*~*~

Al clutched Lily Evans hand. She'd passed out shortly after she'd been brought back, but she was still breathing. That's what really mattered.

"God, she's gorgeous," Al said. "And young. Like she hasn't aged a day since her death."

Scorpius poked the younger Lily. "She's… She's not dead is she?"

"No, she's fine," Al answered without even looking.

"I think we should take her to the hospital."

"She's so perfect," Al went on, ignoring Scorpius. "And so alive. Finally alive…"

"Seriously, mate, I think your sister needs to go to the hospital."

"Then take her!" Al snapped.

"Stop being such a dick," Scorpius muttered. He picked up Lily Potter. She seemed even smaller when she was unconscious; she couldn't have weighed over a hundred pounds. "Are you coming, too?"

"I need to stay with Lily," Al replied, stroking his grandmother's hair.

Scorpius raised an eyebrow. "Great. Leaving your baby sister for your dead grandmother. That's not sick at all." He left with the younger Lily in his arms.

Al stroked Lily Evans' cheek. She woke up then. One pair of green eyes met another. "Harry?" she asked.

"Close," Al replied. "His son."

"How long was I out?" Lily asked, her voice small and tired.

"Forty years," Al answered.

"Damn."

"But you're alive now," Al said. "I brought you back. You're my first, but I'm going to bring all sorts of people back."

"Are you going to bring back James next?" Lily asked.

A shadow passed over Al's face. "We'll see."

~*~*~

James woke up late the next morning. Fortunately for him, it was Saturday, so he didn't have anywhere to be. "McGonagall wants you in her office pronto," Pete said, tying his shoes.

"How come?" James asked.

"I don't know, but I think it's important," Alex said. "Something about your sister."

James shot out of bed. He stripped and put on a pair of jeans and a shirt. "You forgot your shoes," Alex called as James rushed out the door, but James didn't hear him.

James ran down hall after hall until he finally arrived at McGonagall's office. He didn't know the password -McGonagall changed it just about everyday- so he began banging loudly on the door.

The door flew open and McGonagall stepped out. "Tabby cat," McGonagall said. "That's the password."

"Right," James thought to himself. He forgot that it was always something cat related. In her old age, McGonagall had become a bit of a crazy cat lady, often walking around in her cat form and mingling with the seven cats who lived in her office.

"Pete and Alex said something's wrong with Lily," James said, out of breath.

"She's in the infirmary," McGonagall. "Follow me and…"

Too late. James was halfway to the infirmary by the time McGonagall had taken her first step.

James burst through the infirmary doors. "Where is she?" he yelled.

"Why are you yelling?" Pomphrey asked. "She's right here?"

James leapt to Lily's bedside. "Oh my god, she's dead!"

"No, she's just in a coma…"

"Oh my god, she's in a coma!" James clutched Lily's hand. "How did this happen? When will she come out of it?"

"I don't know, Mister Potter," Pomphrey said. "We're going to transfer her to Saint Mungo's this afternoon."

"This afternoon? I want her to get the best medical treatment and I want it now!"

Pomphrey sighed. "I'll give you two a moment." She left the room.

A moment later, Al strolled through the doors. "How is she?"

"You!" James screeched. He leapt across the room and shoved Al backwards. "What the fuck did you do to her?"

"Nothing," Al replied.

"I know you're lying, you stupid mother-fucking-son-of-a-bitch-dick-ass-ho-shit-whore-cunt-asshole-monkey fucker!" James punched Al square in the face, sending his brother toppling backwards onto one of the infirmary beds.

"What the fuck?" Al yelled, kicking James in the stomach.

James let out a war cry and tackled Al. "Die, mother fucker! Die!"

"Get off me, you prick!" Al scream, attempting to bite off James' ear.

James reached for a pair of scissors. He held them high in the air. "I'm going to cut off your cock with this pair of rusty scissors, you stupid fucker!"

Which is, of course, right when McGonagall entered the room. "Mister Potter! Will you kindly get off of Mister Potter, Mister Potter?"

"Go fuck yourself, you old bat!" James yelled. Oops. He hadn't meant to say that. He was just on a roll was all.

McGonagall wrestled the scissors out of James' hand. She was surprisingly strong for an old woman. "Now, does someone want to tell me what's going on here?

"I was just… um… we were rehearsing a play?" James offered. He looked over at Al, who had the biggest smirk in the world on his face.

"Yeah, a play," Al said, still smirking.

"What sort of play?" McGonagall asked, her eyes narrowing.

"It's, um, a historical play. About… house elves. Yeah, about The House Elf Riots. It's a rather moving play, showing the plight of a young house elf girl who's death at the hand of her master creates a world wide house elf revolution. We were acting out the death scene." James gave McGonagall his puppy dog eyes.

"Well, alright, but next time, Mister Potter and Mister Potter, perhaps you should practice somewhere where sick people aren't trying to rest," McGonagall said.

"There's only one person in here," Al said, "And she can't hear a thing."

That just sent James off again. It took four teachers to pry the two raging students apart.

~*~*~

"My dad's going to be here, soon," Al said to Scorpius.

"Are you planning to tell him about the impending zombie mayhem you're creating?" Scorpius asked.

"She's not a zombie," Al said, "And he's just coming to see Lily."

"Which one? His mom or his daughter."

"Daughter. I'm not telling him about the other one yet."

"Why?" Scorpius asked. "I thought you and your dad were all buddy-buddy, tell each other everything, go fishing together, read each other's diaries…"

"I'll tell him eventually," Al said. "I just want to bring back a few people first, though."

Scorpius laid back on his bed. "You know, something as big as a comatose girl, they're going to have the Ministry come."

"Seriously?" Al asked.

"Yeah. You know what that means? Dear Grandpa Lucius gets to pay a visit to Hogwarts." After the war, the Ministry had decided to place all Death Eaters on a probation, allowing them to avoid time in Azkaban and to get decent jobs. It had been Harry Potter's idea, actually. He was one of those "everyone deserves a second chance" kind of guys. So, Lucius Malfoy had been giving a rather high position in the Ministry, one of his jobs being that he had the right to constantly meddle in school affairs. "So," Scorpius continued, "Show I wear my 'I heart muggles' shirt or my 'Death Eaters are just cranky' shirt?"

"Muggles," Al replied. "While 'Death Eaters are just cranky' does have a giant smiley face on it, 'I heart Muggles' is a good shade of pink."

"That's just what I was thinking," Scorpius said. "See, I figure, as long as I'm at Hogwarts, he can't do anything to me, right? It's the perfect opportunity."

"Do you think she's going to be okay?" Al asked.

"Who? Oh, yeah, Lily. Um, sure, I guess."

"It wasn't supposed to happen this way," Al said. "I guess the amount of power the spell took was just too much for her. On someone stronger, it probably wouldn't be as damaging."

"I'm surprised you actually care," Scorpius said. "Last night you just shoved her to the side so you could see dear ol' grandma."

"I was just curious about if it had worked or not," Al insisted. "I didn't just forget about Lily."

"Your parents are going to freak when they see her," Scorpius said.

"I know," Al replied. "I wish I could tell them I'm sorry without telling them why."

~*~*~

"Do you have any idea how this could have happened?" Harry Potter asked, holding his young daughters hand.

"Not a clue," James said. He'd be damned if he was going to turn into a snitch.

"Yeah, I don't know," Al said. He'd be damned if he was going to do anything to halt his plans.

Harry sighed. "Poor Lily. She's so fragile. I want you both to promise me you'll take care of her, always."

James' eyes burned into Al. "I promise."

"Promise," Al echoed.

"We're taking her to Saint Mungo's now," Ginny said. "You two are welcome to come, but you should probably just stay here."

"I'll stay," Al said, choosing one Lily over the other.

"Me, too," James said, choosing to keep an eye on Al and figure out just what was going on.

After his parents and comatose sister had left, James wandered the halls, furious. He checked to see if he could enter the Room of Requirements, but of course it was locked.

And then he ran smack right into Scorpius. Scorpius jumped and squeaked. "I mean, um, Potter, what're you doing up here?"

"What're you doing up here?" James asked.

"…Nothing evil."

"Yeah, same here."

"I was just, um…" Think, Scorpius, think. "The Slytherin bathrooms are all out of toilet paper, so I thought I'd check to see if the one on this floor had any I could take. You know, you'd assume that the toilet paper here could just magically replenish itself or that house elves would be on constant paper watch, but somehow it's always running out."

"Soap, too," James said, staring at Scorpius with narrowed eyes. "We're out of it in the Gryffindor bathrooms right now."

"I hate the soap, anyway," Scorpius said, inching away from James. "I'm just glad that they don't use bar soap anymore. Can you even imagine how covered in germs those things were? I mean, I know Hogwarts is old fashioned, but having bars of soap for everyone to share? That's just gross. And the pink, granulated shit they have now isn't much better. I don't think it actually does anything."

"They really should just have liquid soap," James said.

"I for one am a strong defender of foam soap," Scorpius went on. "Also, I know it kills trees and everything, but wouldn't it be nice to have disposable paper towels instead of a few cloth towels that everyone has to share? Once again, that can't be hygienic. I mean, what's the point of washing your hands if you're just going to get strange diseases from it."

"Truly disgraceful," James said, dryly. "I'm just glad they have flushing toilets. I heard they still used chamber pots well into the 80's."

"I feel the same way about wizard robes," Scorpius said, clearly growing more and more nervous. "Just because we're wizards doesn't mean we want to wear a bunch of stupid robes all the time. I mean, you've got to hand it to muggles. They may be stupid and they'd all probably have been eaten by dragons or whatever by now if it wasn't for us, but they have great fashion sense."

"I hate how we're not even allowed to wear muggle clothes during class," James said. "Like they think one pair of jeans will cause a full scale uprising."

"Yeah, dress codes suck," Scorpius said, now all the way to the stairs. "If it was up to me, we could all come to class in striped pajamas and nobody would give a shit."

"I admire your vision," James said.

"Thanks," Scorpius squeaked, and then turned and ran down the stares as fast as he could.

James shook his head and sighed. "Well, that was weird."


	11. In which Mickey contemplates oversized b

**Chapter 11 - In which Mickey contemplates oversized bugs**

To say that Lucius Malfoy was mortified to see his grandson prancing down the halls of Hogwarts in a pink "I heart muggles" shirt would be an understatement. He attempted to guide the other Ministry officials away before they spotted the daft boy.

"Grandpa!" Scorpius called, waving furiously. The other two wizards from the Ministry stopped an stared.

"Does that shirt really follow dress code?" the oldest of the wizards asked. "My, times are changing here at Hogwarts."

"Next thing you know students will be wandering around in nothing but speedos," the other wizard clucked.

Lucius Malfoy scowled. "Why don't you both go in and speak with the Headmistress," Lucius drawled. "I'll take care of the dress code issue."

As the two other wizards entered McGonagall's office, Scorpius skipped up to Lucius. "Isn't it just a _fabulous_ day out, Grandfather?"

"Is it possible for you to go five minutes without shaming our family?" Lucius hissed.

"Oh, Grandpa, you're such a kidder!" Scorpius gave Lucius a mighty hug. Lucius attempted to bat Scorpius away, but Scorpius only squeezed tighter. "Oh, Grandfather, you're the best!"

Lucius grabbed Scorpius by his hair and ripped the boy off of him. "Follow me," he growled, dragging Scorpius down the hall.

Every time the grandfather and grandson passed somebody, Scorpius would pipe up, attempting to annoy his grandfather as much as possible. "So, I was having _sex_ with this muggle born the other day -a muggle born _boy_, just for the record- and you came up in conversation. He said something to the effect of, 'I bet your grandfather could do some marvelous things with that cane of his,' and I just had to tell him about the time when I was thirteen and I used your wand-cane to…"

"Do you ever stop talking?" Lucius hissed. Lucius tried not to hate his grandson, but sometimes he just couldn't help it. To think that Scorpius had had the nerve to wear that god awful shirt again, and then to hear the filth that was spewing from his mouth… Well, let's just say that every ounce of control that Lucius Malfoy had gained during his probation just went out the window when Scorpius was around.

Lucius pulled Scorpius into an empty classroom. He threw the boy against the wall and pinned him there. "Do you want to tell me why you insist on embarrassing our family at every possible moment?" Lucius hissed.

"Yeah, I guess you've tarnished the family name enough on your own," Scorpius said, smirking.

Lucius whapped Scorpius hard in the head with his snake-headed wand-cane. "Don't you dare talk back to me," Lucius whispered. "You know how hard all of us are trying. We do take care to… lessen our talk about muggle borns and half-breeds and such, but old habits die hard. You could attempt to be more understanding."

"Since when have you ever tried to lessen your muggle bashing?" Scorpius asked. "Oh, right, when someone important is listening. You know, Gramps, you're lucky Harry Potter convinced the Ministry not to throw you and the rest of you old Death Eater fucks in Azkaban, or some dementor would be making you his bitch as we speak."

Lucius whipped out his wand and whispered a silencing spell at Scorpius. At first Scorpius assumed that it was just to keep him from continuing on his offensive speech, but quickly he realized that perhaps his grandfather only wanted to keep him from screaming out for help.

"Well, you've really done it now," Scorpius thought to himself. "You and your big fat mouth and your fucking pink shirt."

Scorpius closed his eyes, and he was not the least bit surprised when the cruciates curse hit him. He fell to the ground immediately, writhing in pain.

"Your father was never nearly as foolish as you," Lucius drawled. "I rarely ever had to punish him past the age of ten. But you… So disagreeable. I hope you realize that you've only ever brought this on yourself."

Scorpius flailed around on the ground. The pain of the cruciates curse was unbearable. Imagine having your heart stomped on while having your penis chopped off. Imagine having a rabid dog rip off your face. Imagine drowning and imagine being on fire. Imagine having alcohol being poured on a bloody wound. Imagine having your legs broken and your hair pulled out. Now take all of those feelings and multiply them by ten.

"Don't let him do that to you," a voice inside of Scorpius said. "Fight back."

"I can't fight back," Scorpius responded. "I can't even fucking move on my own."

Scorpius flung himself into a desk, knocking a glass onto the ground. It shattered into a dozen pieces. He rolled over the glass, several of the smaller glass shards imbedding themselves into his skin.

"I wish I could scream," Scorpius thought to himself. "I wish somebody could hear me."

"Nobody's going to come to your rescue," the voice said. "If you can't fight for yourself, don't expect anyone else to do if for you."

A strange sense of strength entered Scorpius. When the spell ended, rather than feeling dead and weakened, he felt stronger than before. He grabbed a large shard of glass from off the ground and, without a moment's hesitation, he leapt up and drove the piece of glass into his grandfather's neck.

It was impossible to tell who was more surprised by this: Lucius or Scorpius.

Lucius let out a scream and blood began pouring down his neck. No serious damage had been done, but the look in Lucius' eyes was unmistakable: fear. He pushed past Scorpius, who by now was shaking terribly and falling onto the ground, and walked out the door.

Had any noise been able to come from Scorpious' mouth, Lucius would have heard his grandson yell, "What now, bitch?"

~*~*~

Mickey Thomas was worried about James. She remembered years earlier, when he had been a carefree boy whose only worries involved what pranks to pull that day and if his jokes were funny enough. Over the years, James had sobered considerably, grown less and less like a mischievous little boy and more into a hot headed and arrogant man. She knew that deep down he had the ability to be the person he had once been, but she didn't know whether or not James wanted to be that silly, impish little boy again.

Few people gave Mickey the credit she deserved. The was intelligent and she could be very kind. But the moment she began one of her rants about Chazzwazzers and god knows what, she completely lost people. Sometimes, she wasn't sure if she really believed in half of the magical creatures she claimed to believe in. But, then again, plenty of muggles didn't believe in unicorns, and she'd seen one just this last summer at a petting zoo in Scotland.

Belief was a strange thing. How could one truly believe anything without proof? Or was a gut feeling good enough? Most of Mickey's beliefs seemed so right in her heart and in her gut, but her head always disagreed. "Shut up, head," she would say.

Mickey believed in fairies. Not the pixies and such that she read about in her text books. Not the ugly, stupid things she'd found destroying her mother's garden. To her, Cornish pixies and Grindelows and such… well, they were hardly even magical creatures. There was nothing exceptional about them, hardly a difference between them and monkeys in a zoo. But fairies, real fairies, were something worth believing in. Mickey swore that she'd seen one once, a winged spirit that really did look more like a miniature human than an overgrown bug. She could tell others about the Snuffmins and all the other creatures whose names nobody was really familiar with, but fairies, true fairies… well, fairies were Mickey's truly guarded secret.

Mickey loved James Potter. Maybe because he was one of the only people at Hogwarts who didn't laugh at her on a daily basis, maybe because he really listened to her, maybe because even when he was brooding he always seemed to care about others. Or maybe it was destiny which dictated her love for him. Whichever way, Mickey knew that she was in love with James, whether or not he would ever return the feeling.

And perhaps it was her love for him which made her decide to put her search for true fairies on hold and approach a worried James outside of the Room of Requirements and say, "Whatever it is you suspect your brother is doing, I'll help you stop him, if you want me to."

And her smile brightened the entire room when he replied, "Yeah, sure, I need all the help I can get."

~*~*~

Lily was walking. After forty years of Immobility, it had only taken her a day to regain enough strength to walk. She couldn't walk far, mind you, but walking at all was enough for her.

"I need to check your pulse," Al said.

"My pulse is fine," Lily said. "I'm not going to just drop dead again."

"Still, you should probably sit down. You don't want to tire yourself out," Al continued.

Lily laughed. "Really now. You sound like my mother." Lily sat down, anyway. "Grandkids. Wow. Tell me, how many do I have again?"

"Three," Al replied. "James is the oldest and Lily is the youngest."

"James! Lily! Ha! That's original," Lily laughed. "It's sweet, though. I'm really touched." She sat back, smiling. "Tell me about Harry again."

"He's fine," Al said. "He has a good life, I think. He's an Auror now, and a good one, too. He has friends, he has a family." A certain twinkle entered Al's eyes; while he normally felt jealous of others' luck, he loved to think that his father had a good life. "He's turning forty this year, you know."

Lily laughed so hard she snorted. "Forty. God. I never even came close to forty. He's not bald, is he?"

"No, he still has his hair," Al said. "My friend Scorpius, his father is completely bald. Had to get hair plugs. But I don't think he's fooling anyone."

"There's something really familiar about you," Lily said. "Maybe it's your eyes. Not just that they look like Harry's and like mine, but the way they look when they're all twinkly, or when they're dark and brooding." She laughed again. "I think you have split personalities."

"Tell me about it," Al said. He sat down across from his grandmother. "Can I ask you a question."

"Ask away."

"Where did you go when you died?"

A shadow passed over Lily's eyes. "Take a guess."

"Um… Heaven?"

"Try purgatory." She looked down, twirling her red hair in her hands.

"You? In purgatory? Next you'll tell me they sent Gandhi to Hell."

"I don't think I deserved Heaven, really," Lily said. "At least purgatory, or whatever it was, gave me time to think. All alone for forty years… It'd be hard not to stop and think."

"What did you think about?"

"My life," Lily said. "All the ways I fucked up. All the things I could have done differently. The things I could have fixed had I not died. Lots of fun, you know?"

"Still, I can't think of why you'd be put in purgatory," Al said.

"Yeah, well, after forty years, I came up with some theories." Lily looked up. "Are you going to bring back James today?"

"We'll see," Al said, icily.

"Do you think I can go out today? To see Harry?" Lily asked.

"If you want to give him a heart attack, then by all means, go ahead," Al replied.

"I can't stay here forever, Albus," Lily said, laughing but with sober eyes.

"I've got to go," Al said. "I'll be back tonight."

"Alright. I'll see you later. Maybe you should bring James and little Lily."

Al gave a tight smile. "We'll see."

After he left, Lily stood up. She felt like peeking outside, just to see how much Hogwarts had changed over the years. Unfortunately, just a few feet away from the door, she felt a tug at one of her arms. She looked down at her wrist, to find a faint glowing line around it. She attempted to leave, but it seemed that the glowing bracelet around her wrist couldn't pass an invisible line several feet in front of the door, keeping her from being able to reach the door knob by a long shot. "A binding spell," Lily thought to herself. "The little bastard locked me in here."


	12. In which James and Nick discuss death an

**Chapter 12 - In which James and Nick discuss death and dicks**

James was walking with his cousin Rose. "All I'm saying is, I think Al's up to something, and I need help finding out what."

"Are you completely stupid?" Rose asked.

"Um, I don't think so?" James replied.

"Why would your brother do anything to put Lily into the hospital?"

"…Because he's evil?"

"James, you're just grasping at straws. You have no proof that he's up to anything and I'm not going to help you."

"But we need you, Rose!" James said. "You're really, really smart and stuff. Like you said, I'm stupid. I can't do this on my own."

"No, no, no, don't think that you're really going to flatter me into doing this," Rose said. "He's your brother. You should just try to get along with him."

"That's like telling Jesus he should just try to get along with Satan because, after all, they are brothers," James spat.

"Well, maybe Jesus should," Rose said. "It's silly to hold grudges."

James muttered something and then walked off. Rose turned to leave to her dormitory, but she heard a faint whimper from down the hall. She walked down to the room at the farthest end of the hall. The room had been the old Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, before they had moved the class to a larger room. Currently, the abandoned classroom was used mainly as a make out room, but Rose decided to enter the room anyway, against her better judgment. She walked into the room and found Scorpius Malfoy on the ground.

"'Allo, darling," Scorpius said, blood dribbling down his mouth. "Want to come join me here on the ground? Mind the glass."

"Scorpius, what happened to you?" Rose asked, stooping down next to him.

"You smell nice. What kind of shampoo do you use?"

"Seriously, Scorpius, who did this to you?"

"Did what?"

"You're lying on the ground with bruises on you, coughing up blood," Rose said. "Don't tell me you fell off of your chair or something."

Scorpius shrugged. "I think I pissed myself, too. Would you mind taking off my pants?"

Rose sighed. She attempted to help Scorpius stand up, but he just collapsed again. "I think I should just lay here for a while…" Scorpius said.

Rose pulled out her wand and performed a cleansing spell. "There. At least now you don't have so much blood and urine on you."

"…This is embarrassing," Scorpius said. "Here, let me just remember how to use my legs, and I'll be up in a jiffy."

"Here, let me get a teacher," Rose said, she began to stand up, but Scorpius tugged at her robe, encouraging her to sit back down.

"Honestly, I'd really rather not bring a teacher into this," Scorpius said. "I've been in this position before. If you wade it out long enough, it doesn't hurt so much."

"Will you just tell me what happened?" Rose asked.

"Well, I'd rather not, if it's all the same as you," Scorpius said, twitching.

"What are you doing?" Rose asked.

Twitch, twitch. "Um, nothing. I have some nerve… issues. It'll stop in a little bit." Twitch, twitch, twitch. "On the plus side, I stabbed my grandfather in the neck." Hee hee hee…

"He did this to you?" Rose asked, her eyes as wide as saucers.

"Well, you know how old pure blood families are…" Twitch, twitch.

"Actually, I don't. But I still don't think this is normal."

Scorpius shrugged. "Two more years and I'm off on my own." Twitchity, twitchity, twitch.

Rose sat Scorpius' head on her thighs. "Just rest for a while, okay?"

Scorpius grinned. "You have nice thighs. Very squishy."

Rose rolled her eyes. What on earth had she gotten herself into?

~*~*~

Al sat in his dorm, thinking about Lily. He wondered, of course, if he had done the right thing, bringing her back. But every time he saw her deep green eyes or her shining red hair… there was no doubt in his mind that he had made the right decision.

The door swung open and Scorpius entered the room. He was hobbling a bit, and his once bloody lip was swollen, but Al didn't seem to notice. "What are you brooding about now?" Scorpius asked, flopping down onto his bed.

"I'm not brooding," Al said. "I'm just thinking about things."

"I came this close to feeling up your cousin," Scorpius said, holding his thumb and index finger half an inch apart.

"Hugo?"

"What? No. Rose." Twitch.

Al rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I'm sure."

"I'm serious," Scorpius said. "I had my head resting on her thighs and she was all like, 'I want you, Scorpius, you kinky sex devil!'" Twitch, twitch.

"Why do I seriously doubt that?" Al asked.

"Well, she didn't actually say it, but I could tell she totally wanted some dick action from big Uncle Scorpius." Twitch, twitch.

"Why do you keep twitching like that?" Al asked.

Twitch, twitch, twitch. "Shit. Am I still doing that?"

"I can make you a potion to help you with that," Al said. "It should take away some of the pain, too."

"…Thanks." Scorpius had told Al before about Lucius using the cruciates curse on him, and how as time went on the curse seemed to cause Scorpius to have less and less control over his body, hence the twitching. Still, Scorpius was embarrassed every time Al acknowledged anything about his grandfather's abuse.

"Maybe you should have gone with the 'Death Eaters are just cranky' shirt," Al said.

"Definitely." Twitchity, twitch.

"I'll make you extra potion if you'd like, in case you're still feeling bad tomorrow."

"…Okay." Scorpius said, looking down at his feet. Scorpius wasn't one of those boys who pretended to be strong, but he hated coming off as weak. "On the plus side, I stabbed him in the neck," Scorpius said. "That ought to keep him away for a while."

"If I make you the potion for your nerves, will you do a favor for me?" Al asked.

Twitch, twitch. "I suppose."

"Will you help me to bring back Scorpius."

Twitch, twitch, twitch. "You mean the old pedophile my insane mother named me after?"

"The very same."

"Why would you want to bring him back."

"I don't really," Al said. "I just want to experiment some on bringing people back to life before I bring back any other important people."

"Well, I'm not doing it," Scorpius said, twitching. "I don't want to become known as Coma Boy."

"You won't become comatose," Al sighed. "You're stronger than Lily is. If anything, it'll probably just make you a little queasy."

"I'm already a little queasy," Scorpius said, trying to keep his body from spazzing. "If I get anymore queasy, I'll probably just fall over dead."

"Don't you want to be free of his soul, though?" Al asked. "It's the name. Your mother named you after some crazy old pervert, and now a small piece of him is living inside of you. Wouldn't it be better to get that bit of him out of you, so that you can finally be your own person."

Twitch. "Do you suppose that's why I always say such awkward things?" Scorpius asked. "Do you suppose there's some sex crazed son of a bitch in me that makes me go into molester mode every time a girl is around?"

"Possibly," Al said. "Or maybe you really are just a pervert."

"Yeah, probably," Scorpius said. "But maybe it would be nice to get his soul as far away from me just in case."

"Tomorrow night, we'll bring him back," Al said.

Twitch. "Sounds good."

"I'll go whip up that potion for you," Al said. He stood up and headed for the door. Before he left, he turned back and asked Scorpius, "How did dear old Uncle Scorpius die, anyway?"

"Funny story, actually," Scorpius said, his neck spazzing. "He was using one of those blow up sex dolls, but he was pretty old and frail at this point, so he accidentally slipped off his bed right before coming and ended up breaking his hip."

"…That's not a funny story."

Scorpius shrugged. "Makes me laugh."

Al raised an eyebrow. "Well, I'm going to make you that potion now. I'll be back."

"Try to hurry," Scorpius said. "I look like I'm having a seizure or something."

"Alright, bye."

Twitch.

~*~*~

James sat in the Gryffindore common room. It was late at this point, and everyone else had gone to bed. He liked being alone, though. It gave him time to think things over.

Unfortunately, he wasn't alone for long. Nearly Headless Nick suddenly appeared in the room. "Good morning, James!"

"It's midnight," James said.

"Hmm? Oh, right. Well, it's a bit hard to tell, when you're a ghost. We never sleep, so our internal clocks are always off by a few hours," Nick said.

Nick sat down next to James. James wondered why, seeing as ghosts could just sort of hover around and this didn't need to sit. But he finally came to the conclusion that Nick was sitting in order to make James feel more comfortable with the situation. It's easy to forget that somebody's dead when they act just like the living.

"I sent in an application again to join the Headless Hunt. I think this just might be my year."

"Nick, you've been sending in applications to that dork ass club for decades," James said. "Just face it: they're never going to let you in."

Nick sniffed dryly, which James knew was just for show, because ghosts don't breath. "Well, then."

James sighed. "I didn't mean it that way. Of course they should let you in, but if they haven't let you in after all this time, they're just not going to." Nick still looked hurt. "Look, you don't need those elitist assholes anyway. How about you make your own club? For, you know, people with nearly severed heads…"

"Nobody would join," Nick said. "I only know one other ghost with a nearly severed head, and I haven't seen her in years."

"Well, what if you extended the club so that all moderately dismembered ghosts could apply?" James asked. "Even ghosts with partially severed arms, or partially severed dicks, or whatever."

"Dicks?" Nick asked.

"Come on, Nick, just because you're over two hundred years dead isn't any excuse not to know what a dick is."

"It's so difficult, keeping up with modern language," Nick said. "Tell me, what is a dick?"

James smirked. "Ask Professor Longbottom. I'm sure he'll be just happy to tell you." Okay, that was moderately evil, but James still smiled as he imagined Neville Longbottom's shocked face as an nearly headless ghost asked him to explain what a dick was.

"I'll ask first thing in the morning," Nick said.

James stifled his mouth to keep from laughing. He cleared his throat and forced his grin down. "Nick, can I ask you a question?"

"Ask away."

"Why did you choose to become a ghost?"

Nick shrugged. "I suppose I just didn't like the idea of being dead."

"How come?"

"For all the troubles the world has, I would never want to be rid of it," Nick replied. "I love this earth. Everything from eating a fine meal to wooing a young maiden to simply sitting outside and feeling the warm sun on your back. Of course, I can't really do most of these things anymore, but I can do enough to make myself happy."

"When you die and go to Heaven or wherever, aren't you supposed to be happy, though?" James asked.

"Presumably, yes," Nick responded. "But in Heaven I imagine there would be no pain, no sadness. And, as odd as it may seem, I enjoy the bad things in life a great deal, because they help me to better appreciate the good things. Without pain and suffering, we would forget what true happiness is. Of course, I do wonder from time to time whether or not I made the right decision when I chose to stay on this earth, but in the end I don't regret it."

"Do you believe in Heaven?" James asked.

"Do you?"

James shook his head. "I don't think I even believe in God. I mean, I'd like to believe in a god, in some sort of super powerful being who can help me and who can keep my family safe, but deep down, I just don't feel that he's there."

Nick nodded. "I suppose I have doubt as well."

"Maybe we do need pain in this world. But while there is pain, there can't be a god," James said. "I just can't let myself believe that any god would allow sisters to fall into comas and brothers to become evil."

Nick looked at James curiously, but said nothing.

"'God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers?'" James quoted.

"Who said that?" Nick asked.

James shrugged. "Some German guy, I think."

James and Nick sat back, staring into the fireplace and watching as the fire in front of them slowly died.


	13. In which Al attempts to explain the inte

**Chapter 13 - In which Al attempts to explain the internet**

"So… Pancakes or waffles?" Scorpius asked.

"God, both," Lily said. "I haven't had either in forty years."

Scorpius handed Lily the plate of waffles and pancakes he had taken from the table this morning at breakfast. Al had asked him if he would look after Lily that morning, since Al had an early class to get to and Scorpius didn't (since Scorpius had chosen to take as few classes as he could possibly get away with).

Lily bit into the syrup drenched waffle. "Oh, God, I love waffles! I forgot how much I love waffles!"

"Tell me about it," Scorpius said, snagging one of the pancakes from Lily's plate.

"Say, what's your name?" Lily asked.

"Scorpius Malfoy."

Lily laughed. "Nice. Your parents must really love you."

Twitch.

"You think that's bad, you should hear my full name," Scorpius said.

"Do tell," Lily said.

"Scorpius Hyperion Eridanus Orion Cepheus Gellert Malfoy."

"…Holy crap."

"Yeah, I know. Usually when people ask what my middle name is, I just tell them one of them. It reduces the amount of strange looks I get on a daily basis," Scorpius said.

"I'll bet," Lily said, biting into one of her pancakes. "Say, any relation to Lucius Malfoy?"

"Grandfather," Scorpius replied. Twitch, twitch.

"He was a few years ahead of me at Hogwarts," Lily said. "Boy, was he a real prick…"

"I suppose some things never change," Scorpius shrugged.

"I don't mean any offense," Lily said. "You seem nice enough. But that grandfather of yours was King Dickweed."

Scorpius grinned, munching on a waffle he'd taken from Lily's plate. "I'll be sure to pass that along." He paused a moment. "You're in history books, you know that?"

"Seriously?"

"Yeah. I'll bring you one if you'd like. Of course, you're usually only a couple of sentences. 'Lily Potter died to save her son Harry Potter, the end.' But you're still there, nonetheless."

"Wild," Lily said, licking syrup off of her fingers.

"The history books always make you seem like this heavenly Virgin Mary or whoever, actually," Scorpius went on. "I bet those writers never saw you slurping syrup off of your hands."

Lily shrugged. "Even the Virgin Mary must have loved waffles."

"Why did you do it? Save your son, I mean," Scorpius said. "You could have just bailed. But instead you stayed and got fried. It's not like you knew that sacrificing yourself was going to save him, right?"

Lily shrugged. "I love Harry. Before he was born, I never knew I could love anyone ask much as I loved him. If you ever find yourself loving someone that much, you'll understand why a person would rather die than watch someone they love be killed. So, no, I didn't know that my dying would keep Harry alive. But I let myself be killed anyway, because I knew that I couldn't live without him."

"I don't think I've ever loved anyone that much," Scorpius said, helping himself to a second waffle. "Not nearly. Ol' Voldy walks into the room and threatens to kill everyone I like, I'm out of here." He paused for a moment, chewing his waffle loudly. "I don't think either of my parents would have done it. Died for me, I mean."

"You can't know that," Lily said.

"But I do," Scorpius said. "They would have let Lord Voldy zap me into oblivion without a second's hesitation."

Lily's eyebrows furrowed. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Scorpius said. "That's just life. Some people are self sacrificing martyrs, and some people are selfish pricks. End of story."

Lily cleared her throat. "You know, I'm locked in here," she said, changing the subject.

"Oh, did Al do some sort of binding spell? Sorry about that. Guess he just didn't want you running off," Scorpius said. "I mean, can you imagine what would happen if you did? Everyone would assume that you were some rejuvenated inferi or whatever."

"I suppose," Lily said. "It's just that I really want to see Harry."

"You will," Scorpius said. Twitch. "Once Al calms down a little."

"He's very… intense."

"Try fucking psychotic," Scorpius said, biting down hard on his crunchy waffle. "I mean, I love the guy, but the fact that he brought you back in the first place has gotta be proof enough that he has one foot in the crazy house."

"I think he has good intentions," Lily said. "I don't see any malevolence in his actions."

"Yeah, I mean, he's basically harmless, I think. But that doesn't stop the fact that he's a raging psychoholic." Scorpius licked his very syrupy fingers. "Sometimes I really think it would have been easier if I had chosen a less insane person to be best friends with."

"Maybe it's good that he found you, though," Lily said. "You seem like a good enough person, and he needs a good person to be his friend right now. Me, I was never a good friend. The second things got tense between my friends and myself, I would just abandon them and move on to somebody else. You can't do that, though." Lily's green eyes met Scorpius' gray ones. "Promise me you won't abandon Al. I think he needs you a lot right now."

"Yeah, no problem, lady," Scorpius said, heading for the door.

"I mean it," Lily called after him. "Keep your friends close. Don't let them get away, not even for a second."

Scorpius left, leaving Lily with an empty plate and sticky hands.

* * *

James was with his cousin Rose when he found the Mirror of Erised. The two of them had been wandering around together after all of their classes had ended for the day when they came upon it. The mirror was located in a little room behind the restricted section of the library (which really wasn't so restricted anymore, as the now blind and senile librarian Irma Pince didn't seem to care who went into what section of the library anymore).

Rose loved the library. Of course, this earned her the title of Princess Nerd in the Weasley family, her mother Hermione being Queen Nerd. But she didn't care. She loved books, even the terrible ones in the restriction section.

James didn't care much for books. It was quicker just to watch the movie. And, yes, by this point in time, the wizarding world had become moderately familiar with films. James' favorite movie was The Little Mermaid, but don't tell anyone I told you.

"My father told me about this mirror before," James said.

"Mine, too," Rose replied. "Do you suppose it would be alright if we looked into it?"

James grinned. "Rose, you're the only person I know who would even question whether or not we should."

As a matter of fact, she was. Of the many students who had discovered the Mirror of Erised over the past years, Rose really was the only one to wonder if perhaps it wasn't wise to look into it.

James approached the mirror. What he saw didn't surprise him. There he was, standing next to his father, who was just beaming with pride over his son. "Too bad this thing can't tell the future," James muttered.

"What do you see?" Rose asked.

"You first."

"Me, winning the Rita Skeeter Literature Award, two years in a row," Rose said. "Now you."

"Me, single handedly winning the Quiddich World Cup."

They were both lying, naturally.

"It's sort of sad, isn't it?" Rose asked. "Knowing what you want, but never being able to get it."

"The Mirror of Erised," James began, "Is just one big, fat demon bitch."

"Here, here," Rose said, though she didn't care much for James' phrasing.

* * *

"Alright, let's see if this works," Al said.

"This is the stupidest idea I've ever heard," Scorpius said.

"I agree," Lily said. "It is really stupid."

"Sometimes even the stupidest ideas can still be effective," Al said. He pointed his wand in the air. "Accio, Scorpius' corpse."

Here was the plan: they were going to bring back Scorpius great uncle, Scorpius. And while they would need Scorpius 1's body to do this, going out to retrieve the bones would simply be too much of a hassle. So, as a last resort, Al decided to use a simple summoning spell on the corpse.

"Why do we want to bring him back again?" Lily asked.

"While we have the power to bring back the dead," Al began, "It would be cruel not to extend that offer to as many as we possibly can. I've thought about it, and I figure that we should bring back as many people as possible, with the exception of those who died naturally."

"And dear Uncle Scorpius died about as unnaturally as you can, so…" Scorpius muttered.

On one hand, Lily was wary about raising the dead. But, on the other hand, it sure did feel great to be alive again. "While you're at it, can you summon me some decent robes?" Lily asked. The dress she had been buried in had all but disintegrated, so at the moment she was wearing Scorpius' rubber ducky bath robe.

"I'll bring you back some clothes this weekend from Hogsmead," Al said. "For now, your duck robe will have to do."

Lily shrugged. At least she had matching slippers.

"Where did you say he was buried again?" Al asked Scorpius.

"Um… Either in England… Scotland… or Mexico," Scorpius replied. "So, it might take a while for his body to get here."

Al checked his watch. "What should we do in the mean time."

They settled on playing Guess Who? "Does he have red hair?" Scorpius asked.

"Nope," Lily replied. Scorpius flipped down the plastic cards of the characters with red hair. "Does she wear glasses?" Lily asked.

"Yup," Scorpius replied. Lily responded by turning down the characters without glasses.

"Is it just me, or is this the most inane game ever invented?" Al asked.

"Probably," Scorpius replied. "I just bought it to bug dear ol' Grandpa Lucius. It was the only muggle game I could find in Knockturn Alley."

"…You bought Guess Who? from Knockturn Alley?" Al asked.

"Yeah. It used to be cursed. The little characters would come to life and pull people's teeth and hair out," Scorpius said.

Lily laughed.

"I'm not joking," Scorpius said. "You can buy some seriously fucked up stuff in Knockturn Alley."

"You should have just bought a game online," Al said. "That way you could've gotten something more dignified like… I don't' know, Monopoly or whatever."

"Online?" Scorpius and Lily said together.

"You know… The internet? The web? Myspace? …Porn?"

"Porn?" Scorpius asked. "I know what that is. I found some old porno mags in my dad's study room. They were really scandalous. They showed women in their _underwear_."

"Doing what?" Al asked.

"Um… Just standing there, I guess."

Al rolled his eyes. "That's wizards for you. You can find more shocking things in the Sears catalogue."

"Sears?" Scorpius asked.

"Nevermind," Al sighed.

"This entire conversation is immensely awkward," Lily said. "You're not supposed to talk about porn in front of your grandmother."

"So wait… There's porn on this 'online' thingy?" Scorpius asked.

"Yes, lots," Al said, rolling his eyes.

"Wow… Now how would I go about buying this 'internet' you speak of?" Scorpius went on.

Al's eyes just about rolled to the back of his head. "I swear, Scorpius, if any muggles were listening in on this conversation, they'd thing you were retarded."

Scorpius ignored Al. "Yes. I must definitely buy this 'web' thing you're talking about."

"I am so confused," Lily said. "What's an interweb?"

Right then Scorpius 1's corpse flew through the window.

"Great, let's get this over with," Al said.

It wasn't difficult, setting up the scene they had used to bring back Lilly Evans to life. The big problem came with getting Scorpius to carry out his end of the spell.

"Come on, you said you would," Al said.

"Yeah, but what if my want accidentally slips and I end up Avada Kedavra-ing one of you?" Scorpius said.

"Then name somebody after one of us and make them bring us back," Al replied, exasperated.

"Okay, okay, fine," Scorpius said. Twitch. "Avada Kedavra."

There was a flash of light. Scopius let out a scream and fell to the ground. He curled into a small ball, twitching terribly. "Shit, shit, shit…"

Al tried to get Scorpius to hold still while Lily threw the invisibility cloak off of Scorpius 1.

The old man coughed some and then opened his eyes. He looked up at Lily. "Hello, beautiful," he croaked, licking his lips.

"I'm so not sharing a room with him," Lily said.

Al came over to the old man. "How does your hip feel?"

"Broken," the old man wheezed. "Maybe that lovely lady over there could help me pop it into place…"

Al raised an eyebrow. "Maybe this was a bad idea…"

Scorpius sat up. He was twitching like mad, but he wasn't in a coma, which was definitely a plus.

* * *

At Hogsmead that Saturday, James and Rose came across Scorpius standing in front of Zonkos, several people standing around him and looking at whatever was in his hands.

"It's called a 'cell phone,'" Scorpius said. "It's used to talk to people who aren't anywhere near you."

"Why not just use a Patronus?" James said.

"Because this is so much easier!" Scorpius exclaimed. "Look! It had 'texting.'"

"How'd you get one?" Denise Creevey squeaked.

"Al bought it for me for doing him a favor," Scorpius replied.

Everyone around raised their eyebrows.

"Um… Not like that." Scorpius looked back down on at the phone. "And look! It can even go on the 'interweb!'"

"Ooooh," the group around him replied, though most of them didn't actually know what he was talking about.

"It's amazing, the things you can find online," Scorpius went on. "I actually found this video of two girls…"

"Really, now, Scorpius," Rose said, cutting him off.

"Oh! And I created a 'Myspace' thing," Scorpius said. He flipped over his phone to show the others. "See?"

"Myspace .com _/__sexyscorpius12__3_...?" Rose read.

"Yeah, and how come under occupation it says 'sex god'?" one of the younger students asked.

Scorpius' face reddened. "Uh… You should probably just ignore that part."


	14. In which Scorpius sends a text

**Chapter 14 - In which Scorpius sends a text**

In addition to being a sex god (despite being a virgin), Scorpius felt he was quickly becoming a texting master. Of course, he couldn't use his phone while within the walls of Hogwarts -magic and electronics tend not to mix well, as Scorpius had discovered after his microwave had blown up in charms class- but he got in quite a bit of texting while outside. Of course, as most witches and wizards didn't have cell phones, the only people he could text were muggles he'd met online and Professor Flitwick, who had recently gotten a cell phone and was quickly beginning to regret it.

Al entered his Slytherin dormitory. "What the hell are you doing?

"Look! No hands!" Scorpius said, texting with his toes.

"That's… weird."

"Thanks for the phone again," Scorpius said. "Now, let's see… 'Hey… Filius… What's… up…?'"

"Will you stop harassing Flitwick?" Al asked, flopping down on his bed.

"…No."

Al sighed. "How's that twitch? Has it calmed down any?"

Twitch. "I've never been better."

"I want to bring back someone else soon," Al said.

"Haven't you played God enough lately?" Scorpius asked, still texting. "I think the old boy's going to get jealous soon…"

"I have a duty to bring people back," Al said. "If I didn't… Well, it would be like a doctor refusing to treat patient even if he was the only one who had the cure."

"I read something in the newspaper yesterday about overpopulation," Scorpius said. "You know… Just keep that in mind." He continued his text. "Dear… Filius…"

"Seriously, Scropius…"

"Oh, by the way, I accidentally broke your caldron. Don't ask how."

"Uh…"

Suddenly, there was a loud boom, followed by a fizzing sound.

"Son of a bitch!" Scorpius yelled, holding his destroyed cell phone in his hands. "The mother fucker exploded."

"I can see that, Scorpius," Al said. "I thought you said you weren't going to use that thing inside. Remember the microwave?"

"Shut up," Scorpius said, tossing the destroyed cell phone onto his side table.

There was a knock at the door. A small Slytherin girl -neither Al nor Scorpius could remember her name at the moment- entered the room. "Headmistress McGonagall says she wants you to go to her office, Potter," she said in a tiny voice.

"Well, 'allo, darling," Scorpius said, forgetting about his phone and turning to the girl. "Why don't you come sit on my bed with me and tell me all about."

The girl gave a shriek and ran out of the room.

"So, I guess the whole pervert thing really was you, not just your deranged uncle," Al said.

"Yeah, I'm not gonna lie, it's a little disappointing," Scorpius said. "But, hey, I've just gotta be me."

* * *

James rushed to McGonagall's office as fast as he could. Al was just a short way in front of him. James shoved his brother as he ran past him. "Out of my way, jerk ass!"

"Ow!" Al yelled. "Why are you running? Do you even know why we're being called to her office?"

"Something about Lily," James said, banging loudly on McGonagall's door.

The door swung open. "Mr. Potter, will you kindly refrain from attempting to kick down my door?" McGonagall asked. "I swear, every time…"

"What's going on? Is she okay? Is she here?" James asked. He pushed back McGonagall. Standing in her office were Harry Potter, Ginny Weasley-Potter, and a very much alive and awake Lily Potter.

"Lily!" James called out. He ran over to her and picked her up in his arms. The small redheaded girl let out a little shriek, but she quickly got over the surprise of her brother's hug attack and hugged him back.

"Careful, James," Harry said. "She only woke up this morning. She's still very weak."

"Lily lily lily!" James said, still squeezing his little sister tightly. "Silly, little Lily!"

"Holy crap, James," Lily squeaked. "You can stop hugging me now."

James let her down. "Do you remember what happened?"

"We already asked her that," James," Harry said. "She doesn't remember what happened to put her into a coma."

"What he said," Lily agreed.

Al strolled into the room. "Lily, you're awake."

Lily's face paled. "Hi, Al."

James couldn't help but notice the look that had come upon Lily's face as soon as Al had entered the room. "She does remember what happened," James thought to himself. "Whatever he did, she's covering for him."

Harry, Ginny, and McGonagall didn't seem to notice the high tension running between the three young Potter siblings. "The doctors at St. Mungo's still have no idea what happened that could have put her into a coma," Ginny explained to McGonagall. "But they think it might have been something she ate. So…"

"Yes, Ginny, I'll make sure to have the house elves watch what they put into the food," McGonagall said.

"It also might have happened in potions class, so…"

"Yes, I'll talk to Professor Slughorn about it."

"Or it may have…" Just then, one of McGonagall's many cats ran across the room, distracting Ginny for long enough to forget what she was saying.

"Just be careful," Harry said softly to Lily. He turned to James and Al. "You two watch out for her, alright?"

"I will," James said, glancing at Al. "I'll protect her from him as best I can," he wanted to add, but didn't.

"Sure," Al said. Now that he'd already extracted the older Lily's soul from her, he had no further use for little Lily Potter.

* * *

Al and Scorpius entered the Room of Requirements, each of them carrying a tray of food they'd stolen from the Great Hall that morning.. Lily Evans sat on a couch, her arms folded and a stern look on her face. "Either I get my own room or I'm outta here," she said.

Al sighed. He assumed that this had something to do with the undead Scorpius. "What's he been doing?"

"Let's just say I woke up last night being groped by a half-paralyzed zombie," she said.

"Technically, neither of you are zomb…"

"When are you going to fix my hip?" Scorpius 1 yelled from one of the back rooms, cutting off Al's "I'm not creating zombies" speech. "I can barely move. How am I ever going to impress the ladies without my mad dance skills?"

"I seriously hope that's a joke, old man," Lily called at the older Scorpius. She turned back to Al and Scorpius. "Seriously, he's disgusting. I can't live like this anymore. I'm leaving."

Al sighed, since sighing was what Al did best. "Lily, we've been over this before. You can't leave yet."

"Why?" Lily asked. "Why can't you just explain things to Harry and let me see him?"

"The time isn't right," Al said.

Lily furrowed her brow. She was beginning to think that the time would never be right. "You can't keep me locked up forever, kid."

Al ignored her and went into the older Scorpius' room to give the old man his food and test out a couple of bone mending potions he'd been working on.

The younger Scorpius sat down his tray in front of Lily. He shrugged a sort of "Sorry about my crazy friend" shrug and then sat down.

Lily was sick of this. While she was technically about sixty, in all physical and mental aspects she was still twenty-two. She'd never had much of a childhood and her teen years had been filled with war, an early marriage, and a baby. She'd been killed before her life had really started, and being cooped up in a room away from the world was absolutely the last thing she wanted.

Lily leaned forward and looked at Scorpius square in the eyes. "You need to get me out of here."

Scorpius tore his eyes away from Lily's. "Sorry. No can do."

"Scorpius, I can't take this anymore. I'm going insane. No one to talk to, nothing to do, nowhere to go… It's too much."

"Al wants to bring back more people," Scorpius said. It wasn't really a response to Lily, but he felt like now was as good a time as any to tell her.

"Good grief," Lily said. "Who?"

"I don't know yet," he said. "I don't think he has anyone specific in mind. He just likes bringing people back to life."

"Why's that?" Lily asked. "He's doesn't particularly strike me as a people person."

Scorpius shrugged. "I don't ask questions. If Al wants to create a zombie army, I just assume he has a good reason and I go with it."

"You know what I think?" Lily began. "I think he doesn't give a rat's ass about bringing people back from the dead. Do you really think that Al brought back some old pervert who he'd never even met just out of the kindness of his heart? It's a power thing, Scorpius. He wants to bring back a bunch of us and then use it as a reason to convince people that he's somehow superior to the rest of the world. It's just going to get worse and worse, Scorpius, and you need to stop him."

Scorpius shook his head. "You're wrong about him. He brought back 'the old pervert' because he needed to test out the process again and it was just easier to ask me for help than to Imperio some other kid. And as far as bringing back you goes, did it ever occur to you that maybe Al just genuinely cared about you?"

Lily snorted. "Why would he care about me? He'd never even met me."

"I've been thinking about that a lot," Scorpius said, grabbing a sandwich off of Lily's untouched tray. "And the thing is, I think he has met you before."

Lily raised an eyebrow. "Do explain, young Scorpius."

"Well… Mmm, tomato," Scorpius said, taking bite after bite from his sandwich. "Damn, those house elves can cook."

"Ahem."

"Oh, right," Scorpius said, wiping some mayo from his mouth. "Well, as I was saying, Al probably has met you before. Think about it: your soul was tucked away in some twelve year old and I had the soul of the old pervert living in me, so who's to say there isn't more to Al than meets the eye? It's all in the name…"

"…Albus?" Lily asked. "You're saying… You're saying that the soul of Albus Dumbledore is tucked away in my grandson? And that that part of Al wanted to bring me back?"

Scorpius shrugged. "Possibly. I wouldn't be surprised. Keep in mind, though, that Al does have more than one name."

"Do I even want to know what his middle name is?" Lily asked.

Scorpius leaned forward a little. "Does the name Severus mean anything to you?"

Lily turned pale. "Severus?"

"That's the name, don't wear it out," Scorpius said.

Lily shrank in her seat. "I… I have to go lie down." She got up and walked away to one of the back rooms hidden away in the Room of Requirements. Scorpius watched as she walked away, a strange look upon his face.

Al walked out of the older Scorpius' room. "Well, assuming my calculations are correct, his hip will be mended in a matter of hours." He noticed the odd look on Scorpius' face. "What's up?"

Scorpius looked up at Al. "I hope you don't mind me saying this… but your grandmother has a great ass."

Al rolled his eyes. "Forget I asked."

* * *

James and the younger Lily sat in the common room together that night. "So, you don't remember anything? Anything at all?"

Lily shook her head. "Nothing, James."

James was pissed. His little sister was lying to him and he didn't know why. "Are you positive?"

"Holy fuck, James! Yes, I… am… positive," Lily said.

James crossed his arms. "Lily, why are you covering for him? Why won't you just tell me what he did to you?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Lily said.

"I'm going to find out what happened," James said. "And when I do, he's dead." He stormed out of the room and went up to his dormitory.

Lily sat by the fire, deep in thought. In truth, she didn't remember much about what had happened. She knew that Al had been there and she knew that even since the incident it had felt like some part of her was missing. But other than that, she had no idea what had happened to her. She stared at the flames, wishing that somehow they would spell out an answer for her. "Oh, for fuck's sake…" Little Lily Potter said as she got up and strolled off to bed.


End file.
